Primeval, Area 94 - Tuesday
by qjay
Summary: This spin-off 'summer special' takes place between series six and seven of my ongoing story, and focuses on Danny Quinn's adventures leading a new team based in the United States. Connor plays a role in the third act, while the ending sets up my seventh series for the UK show.
1. Teaser

**Primeval: Area 94 **("Tuesday")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a spin-off from my series based on the UK Primeval. Although I've now seen a bit of Primeval New World, this series may contradict it at times, particularly as involves the world's response to anomalies. I do keep continuity with the original series, always._

_TIMELINE: This story takes place between the sixth and seventh series of my take on the UK team. It cleans up some plots leftover from series six and sets up the upcoming one. You need not read this to understand the seventh series, but I would read the previous stories to understand this one._

* * *

**Previously on Primeval: Series 6**

After spending another year in the Pliocene Epoch looking for his brother Patrick, Danny Quinn returned to his own time. Unfortunately, Patrick returned too, and both of them stumbled upon a fledgling anomaly response team in Los Angeles, California, USA. Patrick killed the team's leader, but Danny was able to save its second-in-command, former CIA agent Lisa Barrett, who made a deal with the American government to spare Patrick's life if Danny took over the team. Danny, in turn, called in Connor Temple and Abby Maitland, who were in America on their honeymoon, to help him.

Unfortunately, the Director of the whole operation turned out to be working for a terrorist group called Southfield, which was manipulating time to its own advantage. Half of Danny's team, including chief of security Major Tony Rivera, turned out to be Southfield agents brought in by the Director.

The UK team finally defeated Southfield at great cost- several of them were killed, including Connor, but Abby used his time technology to undo the deaths, creating a new timeline. She confronted the Director and (knowing she could rewind time) killed him to send a message not to hurt Connor again.

Although most people don't remember the other timeline, Abby gave Danny another of Connor's inventions to preserve his memory. As one of the few people aware of the damage done by Southfield, Danny bears a responsibility to prevent the remnants of the group from disrupting time again...

* * *

**Teaser**

**Washington, D.C.: One Year After Series Six**

The sun rose over the capital of United States of America, illuminating in shades of yellow and gold the monuments and neoclassical buildings that gave the city its character: The dome of the Capitol Building, where the United States Congress met, the White House, the tall spire of the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial with the great man looking down on the Reflecting Pool in the National Mall...

And the Jefferson Memorial, lesser-known and perhaps more modest, looking out on the Tidal Basin of the Potomac River. All was just as a tourist to the city would have expected to find it...

Except for the long, serpentine neck rising slowly out of the Tidal Basin.

Not far to the north, in the West Wing of the White House, the White House chief of staff- arguably the second-most powerful man in America thanks to his influence upon the president's agenda- was feeling the burden of his responsibilities on this particular morning. He felt as though he'd barely closed his eyes, slept for perhaps 15 minutes after a 25-hour day, and was already back to work, engrossed in an early-morning meeting with a deputy.

"Now, about the budget," the bright young woman was saying, "I think there's a real opportunity here for a compromise-"

The Chief of Staff shook his head. "I can't see how. I don't believe in compromise and the other side doesn't even believe in _budgets_, so..."

The intercom buzzed, which was less of a relief than a descent into a new circle of Hell. The Chief of Staff slapped at the button. "Laura, it's not a good morning..."

"It's General O'Malley on the line, sir. He says it's a Code Twelve."

The Chief of Staff blinked. "A Code Twelve? Cute. You're fired, and so's whoever put you up to this. Only I need to do real work today, so you're re-hired. The prankster's still gone."

"Sir, the general's on the line."

"Laura," he explained, with what he thought was admirable patience. "The Code Twelve doesn't exist. It's a jokeinvented by some dumbass at DoD..."

"But, sir-" Laura said.

"Listen to me, Laura. Listen carefully; I don't have time to repeat myself again. There _is not_, nor has there _ever been_, a Code Twelve."

At that moment, the building went insane. Secret Service personnel rushed into the Chief of Staff's office, and past it, into the Oval Office. People were shouting and issuing orders. And... there was some sort of trembling, like giant footfalls that made the entire room shake.

The Chief of Staff knew his responsibilities; he had to make sure the President was secure and fully briefed, and he had to get to safety himself. All this was patently obvious, first-day-on-the-job stuff. But he had to see it before he'd believe it, so he ran to the window of the office. In this, he was just a step behind his deputy.

"No," she murmured. "Oh, no... no_ way_."

The Chief of Staff pulled open the blind a bit further, so he could look past her shoulder. And what he saw-

"Son of a bitch," he murmured. "A Code Twelve..."

The fully-grown Brachiosaurus on the White House lawn, unperturbed by all the commotion it had caused, walked right past his window and continued munching on the cherry trees.

* * *

Minutes later, the Chief of Staff walked beside the President himself, as the Secret Service ushered him through the corridors and out to the Marine One helipad, where a chopper awaited to spirit him to safety. He'd already memorized all the files on Code Twelve, which wasn't hard because there were only two and a half of them. But those two and a half files were presumably more than anyone else in the room could know about this most unusual emergency...

A Secret Service agent spoke into his radio, then looked to the President. "Sir, the Vice-President is safely in the bunker."

The President shook his head. "Does anyone think we might be overreacting? It's... a big lizard."

The Chief of Staff cleared this throat. "Where there's one, Mr. President, there's an anomaly. And where there's an anomaly, there might be more of them."

The President frowned. "How long have you been an expert on these things, Bob?"

"...about five minutes, Mr. President."

The President shook his head. "I don't understand. We've known about anomalies for more than two years. I signed secret funding into law for anomaly research. Who's in charge of this?"

"Well..." the Chief of Staff said, thinking of the half-file. "There is a guy, Mr. President."

If the Secret Service hadn't been hustling him along, the President would have stopped short in the corridor. "I'm Commander-in-Chief of a nation of 350 million, with enough nuclear firepower to destroy the human race fifty times over. Are you telling me, in case of prehistoric apocalypse, we have... _a guy_?"

"He's supposed to be a pretty good guy, sir. He's a British ex-pat; the Brits are obsessed with this stuff."

"Well, why the hell isn't he here, briefing me?"

The Chief of Staff sighed. "He works out of LA, sir. We've got a call in."

"That's not good enough, Bob!" the President snapped. "I want you to get on the phone and tell this Captain Jack Sparrow of yours to get his ass on a-"

"Tell who, sir?"

"You know," said the President. "The British guy. From the pirate movie."

"...you mean Johnny Depp, sir?"

"Hell, yes! Get this real-life Johnny Depp on a plane!"

As the Secret Service ushered them through the double doors and out of the White House, the Chief of Staff frowned. "You know Johnny Depp isn't really British, right?"

"Well, he's not Native American either, but the friggin' Lone Ranger sounds pretty good right now!"

The sky outside was blue, the air warm and pleasant- humid, in the manner of the glorified swamp called Washington, but not too much so. The Chief of Staff thought this was a lovely day on which to be attacked by a dinosaur, although personally he'd rather have been out sailing...

The President took about three steps into the sunshine and stopped. He was craning his neck to look behind them, at something just visible past the White House roof.

"Dear Lord," he murmured, "it's real..."

A moment later, the chief of staff saw it. The neck of the brachiosaurus, towering high into the air. The President took a few steps forward, angling around the building for a better look.

"Mr. President!" the Secret Service man said. "Mr. President, stop!"

"Impeach me."

If they'd been less astonished by the dinosaur themselves, the Secret Service might have prevented their charge from getting a better look. As it was, they could only trail after him along with the Chief of Staff as he absorbed the sheer size of the brachiosaur- eighty feet in length, weighing some thirty-five tons. The creature swung its long neck down like a gigantic crane in order to snatch another mouthful of vegetation.

"Mr. President," the Chief of Staff said, "you can't be here."

"Look at him, Bob," the President breathed. "I ought to give Nixon's 'Checkers' speech about this guy. Make him the official White House mascot, and lock in every future voter under the age of-"

"Mr. President!" someone called from behind them; the Chief of Staff turned to see one of the Marine pilots approaching at a dead run. "We've got a problem. Marine One's instrumentation is going crazy."

"Well," said the President, "by all means, let's fly, then..."

The Chief of Staff hissed. "Mr. President, electromagnetic interference is an excellent indication of the presence of-"

Before he could finish his sentence, something struck the brachiosaurus. Actually, something landed on its back: A hissing, snarling, sinewy mass covered with intermittent feathers, but with the snapping jaws of an alligator.

_Raptor._ At almost the same moment, four more raptors- an entire pride, or pack, or... whatever- appeared at the flanks of the brachiosaurus, stalking new prey.

"Of what, Bob?" the President prompted, deadpan. "An ice cream truck?"

"Get the President back!" said the lead Secret Service agent. "Get him back!"

The Secret Service formed a wall between the President and Chief of Staff and the raptors and opened fire, which... might have been a mistake. They brought down one raptor with determined gunfire, but another darted past their guard, unbelievably fast, and tore an agent to shreds. The man barely had time to scream- although the sound he did made was unforgettable. The Chief of Staff gaped at the kill, horrified, as the pilot pulled him and the President back toward Marine One.

Moments later, on the steps of the helicopter, the President leaned close to the Chief of Staff's ear and growled over the sound of whirring blades, "Somebody better tell Captain Jack teatime's over."

The Chief of Staff blinked at a flicker of motion on the edge of his vision. He pointed toward the White House gates. "I think he knows, sir. Look!"

Across the lawn, a full-sized tank of American make, but with a British flag flying jauntily from its hatch, crashed through the White House gates with a resounding crunch. It was probably the second-most-unlikely sight the Chief of Staff had seen all day.

The tank stopped before the brachiosaurus, rotated its turret, and fired what resembled nothing so much as a laser cannon- though the Chief of Staff strongly suspected it was a modified Electro-Muscular Disruption weapon, or EMD, as detailed in his files. America remained behind her British allies in many areas of anomaly research- from what he could tell, any nation that had never employed this fellow Connor Temple was likely to be playing catch-up for the foreseeable future- but a bloated military-industrial complex did have certain compensations in terms of brute strength...

The overpowered EMD bolt struck the brachiosaurus squarely along its flank, and the great sauropod immediately collapsed, crushing a raptor beneath it that couldn't escape quickly enough. The other raptors turned and hissed at the tank, then charged-

The hatch popped open, allowing two women- a businesslike African American with long, black hair and a frankly gorgeous Caucasian with porcelain skin and blonde curls- to learn out and fire smaller-scale EMD's at the attacking creatures. Their aim was flawless, and no raptor came anywhere close to the front treads of the tank.

And just like that... it was over. The Chief of Staff could hear his own, shallow breathing in the sudden quiet- until more than a dozen Secret Service and military personnel surrounded the tank, aiming weapons of all sorts.

Both women carefully lowered their EMD's and raised their hands. The Chief of Staff was about to suggest everyone calm down for a second-

When a third figure popped out of the hatch, a rugged, tough-looking fellow with deadly eyes and an Army helmet worn on his head at a rakish angle. He looked around at the soldiers and grinned. When he spoke, it was with a pronounced English accent with more than a hint of humor.

"You know, at first I didn't think I was gonna like it here. Then I thought... super-power with a staggeringly insane defense budget? Yeah. I can work with that."

The fellow started scrambling down out of the tank, which only caused the military types to lock and load their weapons. But he waved them off, apparently unconcerned.

"Oh, put 'em down. You're not gonna shoot me for saving your President."

"Let him pass!" the Chief of Staff called to the Secret Service as the fellow reached the ground and approached. "It's all right..."

The President shook his head. "Captain Jack Sparrow, I presume? You are, without doubt, the_ worst_ dinosaur hunter I've ever heard of."

"But at least you've heard of him!" said a new voice. Another newcomer popped up out of the tank- a portly, inoffensive fellow in glasses. When the women frowned at him, he shrugged. "I recognized the line..."

The fellow reached them and offered the head of state his hand. "Mr. President? I'm Danny Quinn. Sorry about the mess; we've been tracking this anomaly. We would have been on time if we hadn't stopped for the armor."

"I like a man who brings a tank to a gunfight," the President said. "Are we secure here, Quinn?"

"Well..." Danny Quinn frowned. "We're done here. But 'secure' is a longer conversation. What do you know about a group called Southfield?"

The President arched an eyebrow. "Apparently, not as much as I should. Why don't you come inside?"

Danny put an arm around the President of the United States and they walked back into the White House together, every bit like old friends, while the staff and soldiers gawked. It was probably the third-most unusual thing the Chief of Staff had seen that morning.


	2. Act One

**Primeval: Area 94 **("Tuesday")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act One**

Danny Quinn sat in perhaps the most famous office in the world, across the Presidential Seal of the United States with its prominent eagle from a man who had the power to help him save the world. If he could be made to see the situation the way Danny did, which was no guarantee. Hence the dramatic entrance; in his year-plus in America, Danny had learned that putting up a strong front and showing no fear would go far. Of course, that held true across the world, but in America you sometimes needed a tank. Luckily, Duncan knew of a DoD prototype and was able to modify it on the fly.

"Get you something, Quinn?" the president asked. "Tea?"

Danny smiled. "We do drink things other than tea. Just sometimes."

"Of course." The President cleared his throat and stepped behind his desk. "Did you know this desk was a gift from Queen Victoria in 1880? Made from the timbers of the _HMS Resolute_."

"Yeah, I've been aboard her." Danny shrugged. "There was a... thing. With... pterodactyls."

"You must have some stories."

Danny shook his head. "Don't really like telling stories. Comes from having been a copper. A _story_ is something people tell to mislead you."

The President sat down, studying him. "The story I most want to hear right now is the truth... about what happened in London, just over a year ago?"

Danny made a face; now they were bumping up against the Official Secrets Act, not to mention his own loyalty to his friends and his homeland. But the US and UK had made some strides in sharing anomaly-related information, and James Lester at the ARC could usually be counted upon to smooth over any international incidents, and there was Patrick to consider... and anyway, in for a penny...

"What have you heard?"

The President shrugged. "Our intelligence says the British ARC was involved in a minor skirmish with a terrorist group, code-named 'Southfield.' But some feel the engagement wasn't as minor as it looked."

Danny hissed. "You're right about that, sir. But that's not my story to tell."

"Whose story is it, then?"

Danny smiled, thinking of Abby Maitland and her husband. "Friend of mine, who saved the world."

The Chief of Staff scoffed. "You have a lot of friends who save the world?"

"Actually, yeah," Danny said. "I do."

The President leaned across the desk he was so proud of, his expression grave. "If possible, I'll respect your friend's privacy. But your presence here, just in the nick of time, along with the presence of a double anomaly, which Bob tells me should be-"

"Statistically unlikely, if not impossible," the Chief of Staff supplied.

"Oh, it's not impossible." Danny laughed. "Believe me..."

The President held his eyes. "There are aspects to this story I can't ignore, Quinn..."

Danny shifted in his seat. "That makes two of us, Mr. President. Let's see, where to begin? I suppose it was just a few days ago, though it feels a lot longer..."

* * *

**Colorado - Friday**

A car with U.S. Government plates wound its way through the Rocky Mountains, kicking up dust in its wake which rolled back across the endless planes. It was headed for a Supermax prison facility, a place where the worst and most dangerous of federal prisoners were kept.

Danny Quinn rode shotgun. In the driver's seat, Lisa Barrett was silent. Lisa was often silent, unless she was using her CIA training to interrogate someone. But since he'd arrived in America, the understated beauty with the big, brown eyes and chocolate skin had been Danny Quinn's lifeline. Lisa had dealt fairly with Danny, had sided with him during the Southfield incident and against her own superiors, and he could always trust her. For a man who once found out his missing little brother was potentially a time-displaced serial killer, that trust was... not insignificant.

He didn't know what he was to Lisa. Abby had joked, before leaving LA the last time, that she obviously fancied him and he ought to go for it, since it had been far too long since Danny Quinn seemed genuinely happy about anything. But what was obvious to Abby was not nearly so to Danny; if Lisa had any feelings for him, she kept them to herself in the same quietly professional way she kept everything, and so Danny couldn't tell if Abby was displaying keen instincts or newly-wed optimism.

For that matter, he didn't know if he wanted to know. Right now, what Danny Quinn really needed was a friend to help him in his appointed task. Since Connor and Abby were unavailable- not even in the business anymore, they'd left the ARC over a year ago- and Becker was making a great success of the revamped team back home, Lisa Barrett seemed to be elected.

There was also Duncan, of course, the fellow ex-patriot Danny knew best in Los Angeles. Connor had recommended Duncan, and they shared similar awkward-geek personae. But where Connor was a brilliant mind hiding behind an occasionally silly facade, Duncan hadn't quite found his footing, either as an analyst or a member of the team. Nobody but Lisa, High Priestess of Personnel Files, even knew if Duncan was his first or last name; he was just Duncan to all. Sometimes Danny feared Connor had recommended Duncan merely because he felt guilty for taking Danny's last analyst, introverted but competent Gideon Anderson (with some sort of time-paradox excuse), and he simultaneously felt sorry for his friend. In any case, Duncan didn't go far to make Danny feel less alone.

His job today didn't help, either. Danny was one of the only people on Earth who knew why the person he was visiting was locked up for life, with no possibility of parole. He was one of the few people on Earth who knew the man had ever existed at all. And yet, this fellow might have been the most dangerous terrorist on the planet. Not an ideological or religious terrorist, but a terrorist of time, a man who sought to alter history itself to his own specifications, and nearly succeeded.

The former director of Area 94- Danny's stomping grounds, the 'American ARC' as he called it- had once seemed an irascible but clever man like his opposite number, James Lester. But the Director proved to be a traitor and a murderer and Danny still hadn't forgiven him all he'd done, including apparently altering Danny's own memory several times with Southfield's time manipulation, to keep the team's field leader from discovering his secret. The whole thing made Danny feel dirty, used. Angry.

Which, of course, earned him several verses of a sermon from Lisa. The secret agent turned DoD liaison believed there was one right way to do everything, the most efficient way, and personal grudges were unworthy of consideration. Which was... true, Danny supposed, as far as it went.

As they approached the prison gates and eased into line at the checkpoint, Lisa was still expanding upon her theme:

"Are you really sure you want to do this?" she sighed, in the same tone of voice she might have said _Are you sure you want to chew broken glass?_

Danny rolled his eyes. "You mean, have this conversation for the fifteenth time since we left Los Angeles? No, actually, I don't."

"I'm just concerned about you..."

"Well, maybe let me deal with my own business, all right?" Danny snapped, more harshly than he intended. "Who's in charge here, anyway?"

Lisa glanced at him from the corner of her eye; it was hard to pinpoint the exact shift in her bearing, but she definitely frosted over. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's the person who saved your worthless-ass brother from lethal injection and fought the DoD on it every step of the way. Don't pull this crap on me, Danny. I'm on your side."

"I know you are," Danny sighed. "It's the rest of the world that worries me..."

"Look," Lisa said, "I hate the guy, too. He betrayed my country as well as your friends. But anyone can do this. I don't see the point of beating yourself up."

Danny scoffed. "If you think _I'm _the one getting beat up in there, you don't understand how this works."

"You see?" Lisa said. "That's exactly what I mean! You're letting him in your head! There are smarter ways to tend to business."

"This isn't business," Danny murmured. "This is family."

As Lisa rolled up to the checkpoint and showed her ID, Danny's mind drifted back, as it often did. He thought of that day, when he'd gotten a call from the ARC saying the worst had happened, the world was in danger, and Danny himself had been an unwitting accomplice. He thought of the shattered look on Abby's face that made him realize Connor had been one of those killed. He thought of the grim determination with which she'd refused to be waylaid from doing the one thing they were never, _ever_ supposed to do- change history on purpose. He thought of the bitter fury in her eyes when she stole Danny's own gun and explained to the Director- with extreme prejudice- that further attempts on Connor's life would not be tolerated in the new timeline. He thought of the absurdly calm, almost peaceful way she'd handed Danny one of Connor's temporal inhibitor cards and a flash drive full of evidence against Southfield, with the man she'd just killed still bleeding out across his desk.

When the time-shift came- a golden light, and then a sudden change of everything- Danny especially remembered the haunted look on the Director's face when he returned to life (as, in fairness, Abby had predicted he would). The Director was a particularly cold, manipulative monster, but Danny would always believe, in that single moment when he drew the first breath after his last, he had been afraid.

In his heart, Danny knew he'd been afraid, too. He'd never seen Abby like that. He'd never seen _anything_ like that. He hadn't known time-altering gadgets such as Connor and Southfield had each employed in their private war were even _possible_, and he wasn't sure he felt comfortable in a world where they were.

He took a deep breath and dismissed the memory. Today was about the past, at least in part- but he couldn't let the past consume him.

"By the way," he said the Lisa, "my brother's not worthless. He's damaged from all he's been through. There's a difference."

Lisa scoffed. "Danny, _you're_ damaged. Patrick is a homicidal lunatic. I guess you're right; that is different."

Now it was his turn to peer at Lisa. "I'm damaged? You gonna fix me, then?"

She shook her head, smirking. "They don't pay me enough..."

Their eyes almost-met in an almost-glance, and then Lisa returned to business. Danny was left unsure whether they'd had some sort of moment, or just a bit of banter.

As his problems went on this day, it was probably the least dire. But that didn't mean he didn't intend to solve it.

* * *

A guard led Danny and Lisa down antiseptic corridors toward the Director's cell. The man himself was sitting on his bunk in a plain prison jumpsuit, eyes closed in apparent meditation. He wasn't much to look at; medium-sized, in late middle age, with a lined, ordinary face and grey hair peppered with white.

He didn't even stir while the guard let Danny into his cell. Lisa waited outside, absorbing everything in the room with her eyes. Danny took a deep breath.

"Do you remember me?"

The Director's eyes fluttered open. "Of course I remember you, Danny. We were colleagues for-"

"Too long," Danny interrupted. "Do you know why I've come?"

"To commemorate the anniversary of my incarceration?"

Danny shrugged. It had, in fact, been one year ago this very day that the red tape finally got cleared away by secret order and the Director came to take up residence in this cell. Danny had been aware of that and rather liked the symmetry, but he hoped he wasn't so petty as to make this some sort of pilgrimage of vengeance. He hoped, but didn't know.

"You're right, it has been a year since your acts of terror-"

"Which were never proven in court," the Director said. "Lovely thing, that Patriot Act."

"Your crimes happened in an alternate Universe," Danny said, "but they happened. You killed my friends-"

"Only most of them, Danny. Don't be melodramatic."

"-and tried to take over the world by manipulating time!"

The Director smiled. "Now, show me a law on the books against that."

The smile, amidst the otherwise-cold demeanor- Danny was fairly certain he was being baited, but he couldn't help taking the bait, just a bit. "There are no books for what you've done."

Finally, the Director really looked up- his eyes were cold and pale, like the rest of him. "What I did was make a better world."

"With yourself at the top."

"Now, why would I make one with me at the bottom?"

"You used people," Danny said. "You used _me_. You're a manipulative bastard and a murderer."

The Director's grin widened. "So were all your heroes, my son."

"You're not gonna get away with it," Danny said. "'Cause just this once- just this one time- I don't care about the evidence. I saw it with my own eyes. And I have this."

He withdrew a black metallic card, the same shape and weight as an ATM card, from his pocket. It was Connor's temporal inhibitor- which protected both Danny's memory and the flash drive he'd used to procure the order- still on his person thanks to Lisa's special clearance.

The Director arched a placid eyebrow. "Connor Temple's invention. I never thanked him for coming up with something so easy to go back in time and steal. But I do think we came up with the better name: Memory Retention Cards, or MRC's. 'Temporal inhibitors.' Did he get that from Star Trek?"

Danny let his smile turn vicious. "Now, I _know_ you've been warned against disrespecting Connor Temple."

"Yes," the Director said, with a sudden shudder that made him look very old. "The bullets ripping through my flesh did that. Collapsing my lungs, puncturing my heart, my body shutting down. I remember every moment of it. Abby Maitland did that to me."

"Yeah," Danny said, "and it was_ brilliant_."

That he had his own reservations about Abby's actions didn't seem to matter in such a confrontation; solidarity was more important. And it was at least a bit true.

The Director finally shook his head and laughed. "Well, you can tell your friend her warning worked. In the name of good business, I will give her and her husband a wide berth. For now."

Danny barely had time to process that the Director wasn't at all talking like a man locked up for life, when he lowered his voice and added:

"But when the time comes, I'll deal with the nasty little bitch myself."

All the blood rushed to Danny's head, and by the time he knew what he was doing, the Director was slammed up against the wall and bleeding from the scalp. The guard took a step forward, but Lisa motioned him back. Danny glowered at the other man: smaller, older, frailer than his jailer, but the Director didn't seem bothered by his present difficulty at all. He just smiled.

"I want to be clear," Danny said. "Every time you say something like that, you will bleed. I think you'll run out of blood before you run out of mouth, but I'm happy to test it, either way."

"Is that why you came here, Danny?" the Director whispered. "To torture me?"

"Nah," Danny said, still running on fury. "If I want you tortured, I'll just send you down to Cuba. Or a black site in Eastern Europe. They'll just... come for you one night, and no one will ever see you again. And no one will care."

That got to the Director: Working for Southfield in LA, he'd always been cold and businesslike, but he seemed to have used his time in solitary to brood on the injustice of it all, and particularly on those who dared suggest he wasn't worth caring about.

"Do you really think you can keep me here? _Me,_ who existed in multiple timelines, with the knowledge of hundreds of lives? Who had the ability to alter reality with a snap of his fingers? You forget yourself, Danny. You're just a tourist. I was a _god_."

Danny smirked. "Well, Your Holiness, before I drop off my offering at the First Church of the Bonkers, I need a bit of information."

He stepped back; the Director straightened his collar and gestured expansively, affecting the friendly persona of a man talking to his familiar subordinate. "Danny, you know you can ask me anything. All my answers start with 'go to hell,' but..."

Animosity aside, Danny did need an answer, so he plodded ahead: "We've been getting odd patterns of anomalies on the West Coast. One on top of another. The only time that happened was during Convergence..."

"That's correct," the Director said, like a teacher urging on a pupil.

"Southfield might have had the largest database of pure anomaly research in the world. So you tell me: Is something about to happen?"

"I'd like to help," the Director smiled, "but Southfield was a shadow of itself in this timeline. All my files have faded in the ether."

"Yeah, but I think you're cleverer than that," Danny said. "I'm pretty sure any important information is stored up there in your brain."

He tapped the other man's forehead, rather unsubtly suggesting _Nice skull. Be a shame if anything happened to it._ With any other suspect, he would have hated the use of such tactics. But the Director was a different case. Wasn't he?

"Oh, Danny," said the Director, "of all the things in my brain, anomalies should concern you the least."

Danny smiled. "What should concern me most, then?"

"Tuesdays," the other man said. "Like Arthur Dent with Thursdays."

"Who's Arthur Dent?"

"Ask Connor." The Director shook his head. "Tuesdays, Danny, will be your undoing. Anomalies are just the means."

Try as he might, Danny couldn't make any sense of that. So he allowed the Director to push past him and return to that passive pose on the bunk, while he turned back- to find Lisa Barrett glaring at him.

* * *

On the way back, driving on the wrong side of the road, Lisa unburdened herself. She might have been the world's first road rage victim to direct it all at the passenger seat.

"Congratulations, Danny. You are_ such_ a total professional."

Danny hissed. "You weren't there, are right? Connor_ died_ in the other Universe, and so did my other friends, and Abby nearly went mad, and the things he said-"

"Okay," Lisa said, "but he also said he was a god, and that Tuesdays were bad mojo. So why are you letting Crazy Oracle Guy into your_ tiny, pea-brained head_?"

"Well, it's all your fault, you know!" Danny protested. "You were supposed to be the good cop."

"Danny, _I didn't want to be associated with your performance in there!_ If DoD finds out, I could lose my-"

"I'm sorry!"

"No," Lisa said, "you're not!"

Lisa turned to him, and now Danny saw the genuine hurt he'd caused her, the discomfort with all she'd done... to save the world, yes, but also for_ him. _The calls they made wore more heavily on Lisa than he'd ever realized, and she trusted him to make them properly, and he'd given her cause to doubt today. Often these days, he found himself needed a friend so badly, he forget to be one in return.

He hung his head, tried to think of the right thing to say. Nothing came.

"What day is it?" he finally said.

"Friday," said Lisa, "and no."

Danny looked out the window. "We should stay here four more days."

"What for, the leprechaun convention meeting under his bed?"

He frowned. "You don't think the Director's arrogant enough to give us a warning?"

Lisa sighed. "I think he's plenty arrogant. I also think he's _playing_ you, and you are just dancing to the tune."

Danny fell silent for a while, thinking about a lot of things. One of the things he hated about arguing with Lisa was that she pre-tested her arguments for logical flaws. Being a man who preferred doing what felt right in the moment, Danny tended to lose a lot of arguments when she did that.

"Anyway, we can't stay," Lisa said quietly. "We're_ finally_ getting an adequate level of funding, and we've still got a dozen empty positions from all our people who were loyal to the Director. You're reading personnel files all weekend."

Danny grunted. "Well played, with the obvious but unprovable revenge..."

"Thanks."

The mountain road flew past their windows. Danny rubbed at his eyes, warding off a headache. "Maybe Sharon will have better luck with her lead..."

Lisa turned slowly, wearing an expression that did not suggest cordial relations were about to resume between them. "What lead?"

"Nothing," Danny shrugged. "Just as we were getting on the plane, she was going to check out an anomaly in Beverly Hills."

"Okay... going back to the_ crapload of empty spots_... with what backup?"

"Well..." Danny said.

"No. Please. Daniel Jason Quinn, please tell me you did not send my best field agent off to face a major threat with _the British Lou Costello_ at her back!"

"Well, I..."

"DAMN it!" said Lisa, slamming her palm into the steering wheel. The car didn't even swerve. Even with her rage level up to "11," she kept things under tight control. It was nearly five minutes before anyone spoke.

Then Danny cleared his throat. "My middle name's not Jason..."

"I was mad! I made something up!"

Danny exhaled and settled back in his seat. It was going to be a long flight home...

* * *

On the West Coast of the North American continent, in perhaps the most famously luxurious neighborhood in the Western Hemisphere, surrounded by the rich people, the beautiful people, and the people who were neither rich nor beautiful but were sufficiently famous to pretend, Sharon Clarke could still cause a scene, just by walking down the street.

Only if she wanted to, of course. Dressed to the nines, Sharon was tall, blonde, perfect in every detail, the equal of any Hollywood starlet. Add a little slouch, however, some muss, thrift store clothes, and a different hairstyle, and she could pass down the same street unnoticed. It was all about the attitude, something Sharon had understood all her adult life. If you wanted to be taken seriously in the United States Army, in the CIA, or even in academia, you couldn't always be yourself. She had a different walk for every face.

She wondered if people would think it very strange if she admitted she envied the fellow walking beside her: Bespectacled, heavy, still occasionally a bit mad, her team-mate Duncan never pretended to be anything else. Perhaps he thought he wouldn't measure up; perhaps, outside his limited area of expertise, he'd been dismissed so early and so often that it never occurred to him to even try. He just... was who he was, the one skill Sharon had never mastered.

Admittedly, right now she really wished he wasn't prattling away while munching a chili dog, but that was Duncan, too.

"Oh! You know what we ought to do when this is over? Walk of Fame! I really want to see George Takei..."

Sharon sighed. "Duncan, you know we're not on a date, right?"

Duncan scoffed. "Close as I'm ever likely to get..."

"This is very true. Walk of Fame, huh? Sounds-"

At the end of the boulevard, someone screamed. Instantly alert, Sharon caught the faintest glimmering of gold and silver refracted through a window...

"That boutique up there," she said, pointing. "My compliments to the detector."

"Yeah, I'm always working the detector," Duncan said. He hefted an EMD rifle that looked almost comically too large for him. "I'm so psyched to actually use this, for once!"

"Put that thing down," Sharon snapped. "Stay here. You're just backup. If I call you... call for more backup."

She broke into a run, and barely heard Duncan calling behind her: "Sharon! Wait, Sharon! Could at least let me finish my chili dog..."

In seconds, Sharon had arrived at the boutique. She was just beginning to reconnoiter the situation, when it introduced itself- a huge, shaggy form crashed through the window in front of her, covering her in broken glass. The form landed and turned on her; Sharon recognized it as a dire wolf, a larger version of the present-day animals, easily a hundred and fifty pounds, extinct for some ten thousand years. Not a great way to start the day, but not a problem...

Then something growled behind her, and Sharon further recognized she was boxed in by two further wolves which had already left the boutique. Then closed in around her in a circle, growling and snarling and ready for the kill...

Sharon took a deep breath and let it out. _Okay, so the Walk of Fame might have to wait..._


	3. Act Two

**Primeval: Area 94 **("Tuesday")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act Two**

The first of the wolves charged Sharon Clarke, and she dodged at the last second, lashing out with a kick that sent it flying back through the shattered window.

The second wolf was already moving, angling for her unprotected back. Sharon turned and shot from the hip, knocking it down with a couple of EMD bolts.

The third wolf was in mid-air; Sharon grabbed the largest shard of glass from the window and turned, ready to slit its throat before it ripped out her own...

Several EMD bolts struck the wolf, and it felt just short of its encounter with Sharon. She turned to see Duncan coming up behind her, brandishing his new EMD proudly.

She arched an eyebrow. "Nice shot. I didn't know you could do that."

"Believe me, neither did I. I guess this isn't as hard as Connor made it sound."

"Duncan." Sharon took a quick mental inventory. Unconscious wolf, broken glass, unconscious wolf...

"The number of times I heard _So then the Spinosaurus did_ this... or _The raptor was_ so close_ to ripping me apart_ or _Abby and I faced certain death_ that _time..._" Duncan shook his head. "Turns out, all it takes is a bit of..."

"Look out, you idiot!"

Sharon slammed into Duncan, knocking him to the pavement, as the wolf that had gone through the window came screaming back. Its claws barely missed them, but it landed, turned, and pounced again-

Duncan's EMD had fallen on the ground. Sharon made a desperate grab for it, turned, and shot the remaining dire wolf three times in the air. It spun out of control and crashed into the front door of the boutique. Sharon let her head fall against the ground and took several deep breaths.

"You have an IQ of 175," she said to Duncan. "Can't you count to _three_?"

"Sorry, I just thought..." Duncan shrugged. "Well, if you were Sydney Bristow, you'd totally have subdued it with that kick."

"I could kill you with a handshake," Sharon hissed.

"See, this is sounding more and more like a date to me..."

They helped each other off the ground, and then there was the really hard part of the mission to deal with; taking on dire wolves was happy fun time for Sharon, compared to calming a lot of panicked civilians...

The boutique's owner, a forty-something woman who'd had a bit too much work done, was in tears as they stepped inside. Her patrons hadn't yet decided whether it was safe to come out from behind the counter-

And there it was, in the middle of the boutique: A spinning, gold-and-silver fracture in time called an anomaly. But just a single anomaly, to the naked eye. So either they overlapped exactly- which could happen, though rarely- or there was only one and this whole thing was a coincidence, or... what?

Sharon showed her ID around the room. "Department of Defense. Everything's under control. Everyone all right in here? Anybody hurt?"

No one seemed more than shaken up, and Duncan started poking around the anomaly with some kind of scientific instrument as Sharon approached the boutique's owner. The older woman grasped her hand desperately.

"What... what happened? What is that thing?"

"Oh, well," said Duncan, in a tone of voice that made Sharon certain of an imminent facepalm, "actually it's a sort of wormhole, though not one conforming to normal Einstein-Rosen principles. Actually, my mate Connor- posh Professor Connor now- he recently speculated the anomalies act like valves in space-time, relieving the pressure of non-linear stresses. Which of course is _mad_! Anyone who's read their Stephen Hawking knows..."

At great length, Duncan realized Sharon was glaring at him. Since Convergence, the anomalies had been known to at least some sections of the public, but their inner workings remained classified, and were not to be blabbed to the population of Beverly Hills, for the benefit of movie stars and potential foreign agents alike.

"...right," Duncan said. "Sensing you're not really interested in the theory behind all this. Sorry."

"Go fetch a locking device," Sharon snapped, before turning back to the owner with a sigh. "Look, I really need to know if you've seen one of these before."

"What..? No, of course not! It- it just appeared, and then these awful, giant wolf-things came out!"

Sharon frowned. No help with the double-anomaly phenomenon at all, then. "You're sure? You've never seen even a brief glimpse, anything that might have appeared quickly and faded...?"

"Never." The owner shook her head. Then, babbling, "It's a gateway to Hell, isn't it? Tell me honestly: Is it a gateway to Hell?"

Sharon looked at her and shrugged. "...yes. Yes, it is."

"I knew it! I knew all that science stuff was just double-talk!"

"Sorry, don't mind him. He's always making things up." Sharon shook her head. "But really? Nothing like this before? Never?"

The boutique owner didn't answer. She was staring at a point behind Sharon's shoulder- a point from which Sharon had just heard a distinct_ click_, like the hammer of a gun being pulled back.

"Hold it right there, Yankee witch!" a softly-accented voice growled.

Sharon turned slowly to find herself being held at- well, musket-point, or perhaps primitive rifle-point- by a haggard-looking man with a Civil War beard and a ragged gray uniform from the Army of Northern Virginia, circa 1862. He looked very confused, which meant he was caught up with everyone else in the place.

"Never mind," Sharon said to the boutique owner. "Asked and answered..."

* * *

**Los Angeles – Sunday**

When his eyes glazed over after another six-hour stretch of browsing personnel files, Danny Quinn stepped back from his laptop computer and went to the balcony of his apartment overlooking the Pacific Palisades. The combination of city lights and Pacific sunsets couldn't be topped, and it was all bought and paid for by the US Government. And maybe if Danny stayed here another twenty years, it would begin to approach the value of what they'd taken from him. But more likely not.

He'd just opened a bottle of beer- imported, most of the domestic American stuff was dreadful- when his mobile chimed. So Danny spent another fifteen minutes with a pounding headache, listening to Lisa Barrett fill him in on the state of the anomaly investigation.

"...so the results are back, and it turns out there were two overlapping anomalies," Lisa was saying. "One to 1862 Virginia, the other to about a million years ago, judging by the evolutionary state of the wolves. I've noticed they tend to pair up- one ancient anomaly with one of more recent vintage."

Danny shrugged. "Yeah. Right before Convergence, the ARC had a double anomaly to the 19th Century and the Pliocene. Handy little anomaly, actually..."

"What's always bothered me is, humans have only been here for the blink of an eye in geological time. So when I hear you talk about anomalies to the 19th Century or to Medieval times, I want to ask, 'Why are two sides of a blink connected?' I mean, what are the odds of that?"

Danny stopped to consider; not for the first time, he wished his friends who actually understood anomalies were present. "Connor didn't think it too strange. Maybe there's some scientific reason."

"Yeah, maybe, as part of Convergence. But Convergence is over, and supposedly really rare. So why is it happening now?"

Danny sighed. "I have a feeling you're about to tell me the answer."

"Well, _an _answer, anyway," said Lisa. "My answer. Southfield could re-route anomalies but couldn't create them, right? They specifically said they couldn't just bring an anomaly into existence the way Connor Temple did?"

"That's right," Danny agreed.

"So maybe they need one anomaly to form another? They locate a naturally-occurring anomaly to the distant past and... siphon its energy, somehow splitting it in two, using it to access a point in the more recent past. Double anomaly forms, they get what they need from it and leave the rest for us to clean up. They used this as an occasional tactic, but now someone's doing it over and over..."

"Which suggests?" Danny asked, though he was afraid he knew.

And Lisa confirmed it: "They're looking for something. Something in the past, something they need. Maybe they want to change the timeline back."

The icy chill that ran through Danny's spine would have been hard to explain to anyone who didn't remember the final day of the old timeline firsthand. He took a deep breath to reinforce his calm. "Yeah, but they'd need their time machine for that. Abby swore it was destroyed forever."

"...and Abby is reliable?"

Danny frowned, but it was a fair question coming from Lisa, who didn't know his friends as he did. "Yeah, always."

He could almost hear the wheels turning over the phone, as Lisa's logical mind calculated probabilities. "So the odds are against it being natural, but the only way it could be man-made is if..."

"Someone's building a new time machine," Danny said, proud of himself for beating her there.

"Well, it's all just speculation at the moment... I'll run it down. See you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

Danny turned off the phone and took another long look at the city lights, as the deep blue of evening turned to black. He went back inside and frowned at the profile he'd left up on the screen: Captain Andre Vance, U.S. Marine Corps. Good-looking kid, quietly intense, skin a shade darker than Lisa's. His record was exemplary. Danny had met a lot of people with exemplary records, and chief of security for a dinosaur-hunting operation wasn't exactly the easiest job to keep filled.

A problem for tomorrow. Danny's day had plenty of problems already. He closed the laptop and went to sleep.

* * *

**Area 94, Los Angeles - Monday**

The next day, he found Captain Vance in the flesh; the young marine sat outside Area 94's abandoned director's office; his posture was perfect, his expression unreadable. Danny sat down beside him and spread out a newspaper on the table in front of them while he sipped a Styrofoam cup full of coffee.

"Have you seen the sport section?"

Vance frowned at him, pointed at one of the sections of newspaper right in front of him. Danny nodded as he began leafing through it.

"Don't know why I bother," he sighed after a moment. "It never has the football scores."

"Football's on the front page, sir," Vance said, without inflection. "Giants beat the Chargers."

"Not football,_ football._" Danny made a face. "This nation is uncivilized."

Vance didn't answer, so Danny went back to reading for a while. The date on the top of the paper made him nervous. It said_ Monday,_ but it might as well have said _T-minus twenty-four hours._

"I don't know how long you've been waiting for your appointment," Danny said, "but you should know there's nobody in there. Not even a secretary."

Vance nodded. "I was ordered to report here, sir."

"Why?"

The other man blinked. "Because I'm a Marine, sir."

"Ever do any fighting?"

"Three tours in Afghanistan, sir."

"Angry about it?" When that drew the predictable frown from Vance, Danny had to explain: "We had a lot of trouble here with our last security chief, a Major Rivera. He was a friend of mine, good man, I thought. He sold out to Southfield for a chance to change the past, so it's very important you not be holding any grudges."

Something about Vance changed, though his expression was exactly the same: "You first, sir."

Danny fought the urge to smile. "By the way, if I haven't mentioned it, this is sort of a job interview. I'm Danny Quinn."

"Yes, sir."

Danny arched an eyebrow. "You knew who I was?"

"No, sir. I thought you were a random British lunatic."

First the perceptive little dig, now the unexpected sense of humor. Danny was starting to like this fellow- but he'd made that mistake before. He sized him up as he would have a witness, once upon a time.

"So why'd you really go to Afghanistan?" When that seemed on the verge of cracking through Vance's reserve, Danny held up a hand, a gesture of true. "Love of country conceded. Why you?"

"Because..." Vance hesitated. "When I was growing up, I seemed to have three choices: Be good at sports, join a gang, or join the military. I took the third option."

"All right," Danny said, accepting that. "Anything else you'd like to add?"

"Yes, sir," said Vance. "I want to be clear; I did know you meant soccer when you said_ football._"

"That's refreshing," Danny said. "Why'd you give me a hard time?"

"To be a pain in the ass, sir."

Unable to conceal the grin any longer, Danny dropped his newspaper and slapped the younger man on the back. "Yeah, you'll be fine. Welcome to the team. Now... I'm gonna go fight dinosaurs. Want to help?"

"Since I was six years old, sir."

Vance fell into step with Danny and accompanied him as far as Command. Modeled on the control centre of the ARC, with its prominent Hub masterminded by Jess Parker, the command deck of the Area 94 facility had been upgraded significantly in two-plus years of operation, and now sparkled with the best and brightest tech American defense dollars could buy. Most of the facility itself was underground; in best Southern California fashion, it was built beneath a movie studio-themed amusement park which served as cover and revenue generator for the operation. Danny still got a chuckle remembering how he'd lured Connor and Abby here on their honeymoon by using the park as bait for Connor's nerdy side. The only trouble was getting dinosaurs into their menagerie-like Holding Area, but people could always be convinced they were animatronic...

Lisa Barrett and Sharon Clarke were already at the main computer, engaged in something between a conversation and an argument:

"...so we're trying to return this guy to the 19th Century," Sharon was saying, "and he glimpses a TV in the corner. Set to the news. With... the President giving a briefing..."

Lisa buried her face in her hands. _"Lord,_ Sharon! How could you?"

"He... may be bringing some new ideas back to the Confederacy, that's all I'm saying..."

"Sharon!" the other woman snapped. "Do the words_ temporal incursion_ mean anything to you?"

"Not actually, no," Sharon admitted. "Duncan explained it meant 'timey-wimey thing,' which made a bit more sense..."

"That's from _Doctor Who_!"

Sharon shrugged. "In that case,_ Doctor Who_ officially makes more sense than my life..."

Approaching from behind them, Danny cleared his throat. "Ladies, this is Captain Vance. Captain, everyone who matters at this installation."

"Ma'am," Vance said to each in turn. "Ma'am."

Lisa offered a welcoming smile, which was sometimes the last outright smile you got from her for weeks. Sharon looked at the new fellow twice- which was odd, because Sharon _never_ looked twice. She never had to; Sharon Clarke was an experienced CIA operative who always knew absolutely everything about the room around her. Which meant the second look was for personal reasons. Danny filed that away.

Lisa said, "Did Danny tell you anything about this posting, Captain?"

"Not much, ma'am." Vance cracked a smile of his own. "My CO said it was sort of like Area 51."

"No, no, no... nothing like that..."

"That was like... forty-three Areas ago..." Sharon said.

The introductions accomplished, Danny clapped his hands together and studied the tactical display. "So, what did I miss?"

"Well," said Lisa, "we've triangulated the multiple anomalies, and they're clustered around here..."

She pointed to a glowing dot on the display. Danny followed the superimposed map, and frowned.

"Downtown Santa Monica. What's this facility here, at the center?"

"Not sure. It appears to be just a warehouse, but it belongs to a company called McMillan Storage with a complicated chain of ownership..."

"You think it's a front?" Danny asked. "For Southfield, or whoever's trying to bring them back?"

"Well, I didn't," Lisa said, "but then I had Sharon go a little deeper on their records..."

"What does 'go a little deeper' mean?" Vance asked.

Sharon smirked at him. "It means reading all their e-mails. Where have you been?"

"Check out the items they've added to their inventory," said Lisa.

She pointed Danny to a screen full of obscure electronic equipment. Magnetic... something something and electrical-field... whatever. Connor could have made sense of the list, but it was all ancient Latin to Danny. Actually, he spoke a bit of Latin, so it was worse...

"It's not just any computer equipment," Sharon explained. "Duncan says it's _the_ equipment. It's what you'd need if you were trying to rebuild Connor Temple's time device... or maybe something worse."

"They're building a new machine in Santa Monica, right under our noses," Lisa murmured.

Danny studied the evidence, which was fairly conclusive, and nodded. "All right. Vance, Sharon, with me to check it out. Lisa, get Duncan on that list, see if he can figure out how far they are from fully operational. Where is Duncan, anyway?"

Sharon Clarke got an amused look on her face. "He's... conversing with the only person in America who really understands him..."

Danny arched an eyebrow, but he didn't have time to care much about hints and games. He'd known for over a year that the ARC's victory over Southfield could be undone in a moment if anything- any hint, any glimmer- of their time technology survived. More than that, he happened to_ like_ the last year. He'd made a home, gotten closer to Lisa, started to feel normal again.

He'd be damned if he'd let anybody unwind it all now. Danny Quinn left the command deck with two trained soldiers at his back and the air of a man starting a war...

* * *

Down in the Holding Area of Area 94, the Area Squared as Duncan liked to think of it, the ARC's resident nerd was engaged in a crucial battle of wits with an implacable opponent.

He stood on a metal catwalk, overlooking an industrial-sized tank of water such as those found at major aquariums, watching two cold eyes watch him. Slowly, carefully, he reached down into the bucket beside him and pulled out his only weapon: A dead mackerel.

"All right, darlin'," Duncan said. "Not gonna make it easy on you this time...ready?"

A low, throaty croak might have been his reply. He took a deep breath and flung the mackerel high into the air, watching it soar above the tank-

Until a serpentine neck burst out of of the water, nearly turning a figure of eight to snag the fish in the air. The owner of the neck, which happened to be a juvenile plesiosaur retrieved from the Chesapeake Bay on the East Coast, swallowed the fish in two bites and squawked happily.

"Oh, brilliant!" Duncan said. "That was brilliant! I can tell you've been practicing..."

The neck, along with the rest of the creature's streamlined body and wide, powerful flippers, sailed through the water approaching Duncan, cooing and trilling for more. It tried to stick its head into the bucket, and Duncan playfully batted it away. The creature nuzzled him in return.

"Aw, that's a good Chessie. Yes, it is! Who's the best little plesiosaur in the world? Chessie is! Yes, he-"

Someone cleared their throat behind him. "Would you two like to be alone?"

Duncan spun about and kicked the bucket, metaphorically speaking. This pleased Chessie no end, as the plesiosaur snatched up all the fish that spilled onto the deck and into the water. A few steps away, Lisa Barrett did all she could do not to laugh.

"Oh- er-" Duncan sighed. "Sorry, Ms. Barrett. Did you need something?"

"Some leads from Danny." Lisa handed him a tablet with a list of electronic components. Then she studied him more closely. "You're down here a lot."

"Yeah. Well." Duncan pet the smooth skin of Chessie's head, and the plesiosaur let him do it. He'd worked on that for a while, establishing a rapport. "I suppose I empathize with this fellow. We're both a long way from home."

Lisa smiled- but the expression vanished when her mobile phone chimed. Then she was all business again. "Lisa Barrett."

"Lisa, it's Danny. We're at the site. And-"

"And?" Lisa prompted, when nothing was forthcoming.

* * *

Danny Quinn stood before the open doors of a warehouse in Santa Monica, staring at a double anomaly- one, small and nondescript, almost like a moon in the orbit of a gas giant- a large, swirling anomaly like a hurricane in time, as large as any anomaly Danny had ever seen- through which came an audible _roar._ Danny held the phone to his ear for a long moment, trying to think what to say, and finally finished weakly:

"-and I think we have a problem."


	4. Act Three

**Primeval: Area 94 **("Tuesday")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act Three**

The double anomaly seemed to beckon Danny Quinn, yet another portal to some distant land where he could discover great wonders and die a horrible death. Since he'd already come too close to the second thing and more or less had his fill of the first, he gave the only order that sprang to mind:

"EMD's!"

Along with Sharon and Vance, he readied the glorified cattle prods that provided their margin of error against prehistoric beasts. Truth to tell, Danny wasn't enamored of the things; in his time at the ARC, they'd still been using _guns_, and he was old-school enough to keep up the practice when he moved across the pond. At first, the American government had been happy to oblige- terribly fond of guns, that lot- but then there was a minor incident in North Carolina. They accidentally killed a microraptor instead of putting it back where it belonged and, long story short, lost a colony.

Since then, they'd been taking the "non-lethal" thing more seriously, although that wasn't a great deal of comfort against a roar as loud and deep as the one bouncing through that anomaly.

A moment later, there it was: The other side of the roar, a _Tyrannosaurus Rex_ in all its glory, charging through the anomaly right at them. Sharon dove in one direction and Vance dove in the other, which left Danny in the center, firing his EMD until the last second. He ducked its jaws and rolled away, but the floor kept trembling beneath him. Since the T-Rex was stuck deciding which prey to chase and Danny hadn't put on a few thousand kilograms recently, that meant...

"Uh-oh."

_Dinosaur Fight!_ He thought, a second before the other half of the conflict joined them in the future: A fully grown _Triceratops,_ which charged the T-Rex with its head lowered: three horns, no waiting.

Danny found his feet and barely missed being trampled, but as the trike engaged the T-Rex, it brought its tail around in a great swipe that caught Danny squarely across the chest and knocked him backward, through the smaller anomaly-

And onto a tropical beach. Danny coughed out a mouthful of sand and checked to make sure he hadn't cracked any ribs before hauling himself to his feet. The other end of the smaller anomaly was temperate, with a bright sky, cool breezes, crystal-blue water. Very nice place, and judging by the shipyard in the distance, far closer to the present day than the last anomaly he'd visited against his will.

Then he heard the droning roar in the distance, and realized that didn't make it safer by any stretch of the imagination. The droning was coming closer, and it originated in the air: With dozens of old propeller aircraft that looked impossibly new. And their insignia...

_Those aren't just aircraft,_ Danny realized,_ those are Japanese zeroes, World War II vintage... which makes this the morning of... oh, dear. Oh, this is not good..._

He turned back toward the anomaly, wanting no part of the living history unfolding- but it condensed right in front of him, just as though someone had jolted it with a locking device. Danny looked in all directions for the source of the signal...

And there it was, coming up behind him, leaving a long trail of footprints on the beach: A tall, powerful man in an era-appropriate black trench coat, a fellow with a cold, graveyard stare. Danny sized him up immediately: _Career criminal. Professional killer._ He'd known a few of them in his former life.

The man in black nodded to him. "Help you with something, Mr. Quinn?"

Danny frowned. "How do you know my name?"

"It's on my list. My to-do list. Let's see..." The man took a slip of paper out of his coat, a paper marked on one side with an endless series of letters and numbers. "'Kill Danny Quinn at Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941.' This is Pearl Harbor and that's you. I assume the date's right; I'm told it lives in infamy."

"You're from the future," Danny said.

"No, but all my friends are." In the distance, the bombs began to fall, as plumes of greasy smoke blossomed from a crippled American fleet. "You're meddling where you don't belong, Mr. Quinn."

"But how can I be here...?" Danny shook his head as the man approached. "On_ this_ day? The odds have to be..."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the man said. "We're out of time. My friends explained how anomalies work, and I think I'd better close this one fast. Wouldn't do to have a Tyrannosaurus stomping all over the battle. Although, that _would_ be something to see."

"Now, look..." Danny said, holding up his hands for peace.

But no peace would be forthcoming from the man in black, who removed a lwicked-looked knife from his trench coat. Danny wondered why it wasn't a gun, until he saw something else in the man's eye: a savage pleasure, carefully buried. Beneath the facade of professionalism, this man was a _specialist._ He'd made killing his work because it was what he loved. That made Danny feel a little better about the likelihood that terrible things were about to happen to one or the other of them.

"If we do this quickly," the man said as he advanced, "I can toss you in with the wreckage. If we don't do it quickly... well, that will be up to you."

He jabbed with the knife, and Danny evaded its blade by a hair's breadth. He doubted he'd be so lucky a second time...

* * *

The warehouse was full of stacks of crates, and Sharon Clarke used them to her advantage as she climbed high enough to get the drop on the T-Rex. Vance helped her out by stamping and shouting for the attention of the Triceratops.

When it turned in his direction, he opened up with his EMD, but a couple of bolts barely winged it and another struck the bony frill on the back of its neck. The trike veered aside in annoyance, sideswiping the T-Rex, which stumbled into the stack of crates Sharon had vaulted.

On the plus side, she got a beautiful shot at its head and zapped it with a couple of bolts straight-on. On the minus side, its jaws got a pretty good shot at her, too. She backed away to avoid becoming an appetizer, but stepped off the edge of the highest crate and lost her balance, even as the disoriented T-Rex continued to barrel right through the stack...

She tried to turn and jump off, but she couldn't find any footing, and then the crates gave way beneath her with a sickening lurch. She felt herself pitched into empty space and hit her head on something- which actually distracted her from her entire body doing a belly flop onto the concrete floor. Her breath left her in a rush and she tried to struggle to safety-

But the crates were all falling now. First one metal container and then another landed squarely on top of her. Sharon felt herself being crushed as her vision turned red...

Then it turned black and she mercifully felt very little.

* * *

The assassin swiped at Danny again and again, forcing him back into the surf as explosions and anti-aircraft fire turned the world behind them into an insane light show of fiery ruin. Strangely, for all his immediate troubles, the thing Danny really found himself dwelling on was a suspicion at the best of his mind.

"7 December, 1941," he said to the man in black. "What day of the week is that?"

The other grinned. "It's a Sunday."

"...well, it was worth a thought," Danny said, hoping that like Macbeth with Birnham Wood, his prophesied Tuesday doom could not sneak in on a weekend.

The assassin lunged again; this time, he was a touch careless; Danny grabbed the wrist with the knife and twisted.

"Now, look," he said, "we can do this two ways, and yours doesn't end well."

The assassin laughed. "Nothing ends well, Quinn. Especially when you cross certain people."

"Such as...?"

But the man in black dug in and wrestled the knife away, slicing madly. Danny felt a spasm of pain as his shirt and skin both ripped open from a slash across the shoulder. He judged it was superficial, but it did a lot to make him angry. He aimed a roundhouse right at the assassin, and the other man got tangled up in his trench coat as he backed away. Danny grabbed him and slammed him down to the sand.

"What people, dammit? Southfield? They're done! We beat them!"

The man in black laughed. "Southfield was only announcing the end. They're not the ones who carry it out. You killed the messenger, Quinn!"

"Yeah, well, I'm good at that," Danny said. "Thanks for the message."

He blocked a slash of the knife, drove his fist into the assassin's nose, and was rewarded with the satisfying double-crack of the fellow's nose breaking and his skull hitting the ground. The assassin kicked him backward. Danny recovered his footing and kicked the knife away before the other could lunge for it. Then he hammered a couple of blows into the man's body, turned, and flipped the assassin over his shoulder, into the surf. He held his head underwater, waiting for his struggling to slacken before letting him up for air.

In the distance, one of the bombs struck home, and the magazines on the battleship_ Arizona_ went up in flames. Danny watched the great vessel sink, hoping the entire world wasn't about to join it in slipping beneath the waves...

* * *

Seventy-plus years later in a Colorado Supermax prison, another reaction, nearly as explosive in its own way, took place in front of the Director's cell. Time and space ripped open, revealing a silver-gold vortex of shattered eternity called an anomaly.

The guard outside the cell, understandably thunderstruck by this turn of events, made the mistake of putting his sense of wonder before his caution. He approached the anomaly, transfixed, and reached out toward it-

Then the muzzle of a pistol came through it and fired, point-blank. The guard's body hit the floor, and the Director smiled.

* * *

The assassin didn't go down easily; the moment he got breath back in him, he slammed a rabbit punch into Danny's stomach and tried to turn the tables on him. But Danny held on and slammed his head against the ground, again and again, until he finally lay back with blood streaming from his broken nose.

"What would have happened," the man rasped, "if we'd done it your way?"

Danny grinned. "That _was_ my way."

"Boast all you want, Quinn," the assassin said. "Boast all the way to Tuesday. It's still coming. And I don't intend to be here for it."

With an effort Danny hadn't thought he still had in him, he pushed Danny away and made a desperate grab for the knife, which now rested in the surf only a few centimeters from his grasp. Danny pulled him back, but too late. He brought the knife around, and Danny's life passed before his eyes-

And then the man drew the knife across his own throat. Danny fell backward onto the wet sand, stunned and confused, as around him, the whole surf turned red. He sat there- he didn't know how long- until the battle in the distance drew him back to the present, and the inadvisability of being a suspicious character loitering around the site of a major national security disaster. He patted down the dead man's trench coat, confiscating the list of numbers as well as the control device that had locked the anomaly.

With the press of a button, the anomaly expanded, and Danny abandoned the past in favor of an extremely uncertain future...

* * *

Andre Vance had been through some tough spots in Afghanistan; he'd seen friends die, thought he was dead himself a couple of times. He'd never felt quite the same primal terror he felt in this specific moment. Of course, he'd never had to run from an out-of-control triceratops, either. He barely dodged at least two attempts to gore him, and generally tried to keep one step ahead of the thundering footfalls of the beast, even as his attention kept getting drawn across the warehouse, to where the Tyrannosaurus was rooting through piles of overturned crates, scavenging for prey...

_Right,_ Vance thought. _Guess I'm gonna have to get on top of this situation..._

Or below it, as the case happened. With the trike only steps behind him, he suddenly fell prone. The trike couldn't react in time, and barreled right over him, stomping the ground just about half an inch from Vance's skull. Meanwhile, he found his EMD and unleashed a volley of bolts into the creature's unprotected belly. The trike wavered on its feet as Vance rolled away, then dove for the last few inches of ground-

The stunned triceratops slammed into the pavement where he'd just been. Vance took a deep breath, tried to control the shuddering terror, then turned his attention to the T-Rex as it overturned the crate with the prize underneath. It drew back and opened its jaws wide, the better to make a light snack of Sharon Clarke- but she was playing possum, and brought her EMD up out of concealment even as the T-Rex lunged. When she fired, it staggered backward, shaking its head to clear the sparks from its eyes, but Sharon's lower body was still trapped by another crate. She had no place to run...

Vance vaulted over the nearest of the crates and made it to Sharon's side as the T-Rex was recovering. He pushed the crate away and wrapped an arm around her, dragging her toward safety- wherever that was.

"_Run_!" Sharon hissed as the T-Rex came in for another pass.

Vance wasn't going to do that, but he did let her go in order to open fire on the Tyrannosaur. Sharon joined him, and they poured multiple bolts into the carnivore from close range. Vance could smell the awful stink of the thing's breath, see its useless little arms grasping as the gigantic jaws closed in-

Two steps before devouring them, the T-Rex gave way to the EMD bolts and pitched forward on its face, landing right in front of Sharon and Vance, close enough to touch. Vance took a deep breath and exhaled. He was just getting his wits back to wonder where their glorious team leader had disappeared to...

When Danny Quinn came back through the smaller anomaly, turned, and locked it with the click of a remote control. Vance frowned- that bit of tech hadn't been in the briefing.

Sharon managed about half a laugh and half a disgusted snort. "Look who missed the party."

"Sorry," Danny said. "We were having a bit of a gathering on the other side."

"Learn anything good?"

"No," Danny shook his head as he turned his attention to locking the big anomaly. "There was nothing good back there."

Job done, he strode from the warehouse; with a shrug of resignation, Vance pulled Sharon to her feet and let her lean on him as they limped toward the door. Onlookers and equally amazed police officers were beginning to gather outside.

Danny's mobile phone chimed before he could deal with them. Vance and Sharon came up alongside in time to hear a no-nonsense female voice: Lisa Barrett.

"You all right? I've been trying to call, but I got no signal."

Danny shook his head. "Yeah, I'm not surprised. I was... out of area..."

"I've been in touch with the warden from Colorado," Lisa continued. "Guess who skipped the leprechaun convention a day early?"

Danny lowered the phone and said several words under his breath, most of which were British curses Vance didn't know very well. By his tone, they sounded extremely vulgar. If he ever ran out, Vance would have been happy to teach him several American epithets appropriate to the occasion...

* * *

Back on the command deck of Area 94 along with Lisa, an exhausted Vance, and a hobbled but determined Sharon, Danny Quinn slammed his fist into a console with annoyance bordering on despair.

"There was never any machine! The whole thing was just a setup to occupy us while he escaped!"

"Maybe today was that," Lisa said judiciously, "but these anomalies have been appearing for weeks. There's still more here."

Danny frowned at her. "You really think they're looking for something?"

"Absolutely. I just wish we knew how to find out what."

Danny reached into his pocket and came up holding a crumpled sheet of paper. "Maybe we do."

Vance squinted at the mostly-indecipherable text. "What is all that?"

"I dunno," Danny said, "but I know who to ask."

He rather enjoyed the confused expressions on the faces of the others as he turned from the console and went to make a few calls. For that matter, he expected to enjoy the calls, as well. Given how little enjoyment Danny had derived from this whole situation, he thought it was about time...

* * *

On a large island off the west coast of an entirely different continent, a man sat on a sofa in his sitting room, both newly bought and paid for with a generous severance package from six-plus years of dinosaur hunting. It was probably a good thing the government held his special talents in esteem, because neither Connor Temple's junior faculty salary from the university, nor his wife's income as a zookeeper, would have supported his X-Box habit and his growing family simultaneously.

Just at the moment, Connor's mind was as far from practical concerns as practicable; rather, he was fending off a persistent zombie invasion armed with only a shotgun, his wits, and a modest control pad. He almost felt bad about the head shots- he'd been quite sentimental about zombies ever since a handful had attended his wedding, more than a year earlier.

A persistently ringing phone interrupted his reminiscing. He hoped Abby would get it, but after a couple of rings, he gave up that hope. It was beginning to be easier for him to get up and reach the phone anyway. He sighed and paused the game.

"Temple residence, conqueror of the zombie hordes speaking."

"Connor?" said a familiar voice. "It's Danny."

Familiar, but not that welcome. Connor fell back onto the sofa, head spinning. "Danny? How did... I mean, hello. How'd you get this number?"

"Blackmailed Lester for it."

"How'd_ Lester_ get this number?"

"By being Lester, I reckon."

Connor groaned. He and Abby had been very clear- though apparently not clear enough- with their old boss upon resigning from the ARC last year: They were not, under any circumstances short of Armageddon, to be dragged back into the business. The whole thing was just too _Godfather III._ A clean break was what they needed- but apparently, would never get.

Before he had the chance to object, Danny changed the subject to something benign: "I hear congratulations are in order for you and Abby?"

If Connor had been cleverer about people, he might have recognized the classic policeman's tactic- making his suspect comfortable before beginning the interrogation. But of all the many things Connor Temple was clever about, people were the last, so he let down his guard:

"Eh... yup. Yeah. Only a few months along, but we're really excited."

"I'll bet you are," Danny said. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, absolutely. I mean... the only thing... you know how Abby can be sort of disagreeable when she's in a bad mood? Well, now she's pregnant."

"Ohh..." Danny said. "Sorry about that, mate."

"No, no. It's fine. We're good. No stress from the ARC, etcetera. And I'm really looking forward to doing all those traditional dad things, you know: teaching him football, introducing him to the _Star Wars_ movies- originals only, _no _Jar-Jar Binks, thank you- showing him how to get Level 80 armor in _Guild Wars_..."

Danny chuckled. "What if it's a girl, Connor?"

"Well, in that case, she'll probably take after Abby and she can teach _me _football."

They had a good laugh, which should have been a warning sign. Just like that, Danny's voice turned serious: "Connor, if I e-mailed you some odd calculations, could you tell me what they meant?"

"Eh... maybe," he sighed. "Possibly. If you're certain you didn't catch my subtle hint about staying away from ARC-related stress."

"Look, I know you're out," Danny said, sounding just like one of Michael Corleone's more reasonable advisers. "I know you're happy. But this won't take long."

Connor groaned. "Yeah, it never starts out taking long, and then before you know it, you're spearing fish in the Cretaceous. Can't Duncan do it?"

A pause on the other end of the line. Connor didn't trust that pause.

"I don't really want to give this to Duncan. It's... a bit beyond him, I think. Looks like serious time stuff."

"Then burn it," Connor said.

"Connor, listen-"

"I'm not kidding, Danny! Look, I _know_... Abby told me what happened in the other timeline. She was going to keep it from me, but after we- after what happened to Jenny, there was no way to avoid it. We _almost ended the world_. We blame Rivera and the Director- but it was us. It was _me_. This 'serious time stuff'... it's nothing but trouble, mate."

"I understand why you feel that way," Danny said, "but I really need you to do this for me."

Connor took in a deep breath. One day, perhaps, he'd be confident enough in himself to tell his old team leader to go to the devil, to put his own family and happiness first, but that day hadn't quite arrived yet. He owed Danny Quinn too much. Finally he exhaled.

"...all right, yeah. I'll take a look. Don't just e-mail it. Let me set up a secure transfer method. I'll text you when I'm ready."

"Right. Thanks, Connor," Danny said. Then, with a notable catch in his voice, "There's one more thing you ought to know. The Director is out. He escaped from prison a few hours ago."

"_What_?!"

Before Connor knew what he was doing, his X-Box controller was in pieces on the other side of the room. Three centimeters further, it would have gone through the window. He stared at the earpiece of the phone as though it had betrayed him.

"You didn't want to_ lead_ with that? 'Oh, Connor, the bloke who _killed you_ and swore vengeance on your wife might pop 'round later? Be ready for him?"

"He's not gonna come around," Danny said. "He'll never get into the UK. He's on every list."

"_These people don't travel by plane, Danny_!" It probably wasn't his friend's fault, but Connor had a year of built-up anger and worry to dispel, so he couldn't help seething a bit. He didn't even know what to say, but he settled on: "What am I gonna tell Abby?"

"Nothing. Don't tell her yet. I'll handle it."

Connor frowned. "I can't lie to her! Not about this!"

"Don't lie," Danny said. "Just don't say anything. It's almost Tuesday over there, yeah? Keep her out of sight all day. Take her to the country, buy things for your nursery, I don't care, just keep her away. If I haven't made any progress by the time you get back, you can-"

"Danny, come_ on_!" Connor hissed. "She deserves to know."

The pause from Danny's end stretched out for an extra moment. "Look, this is a longer conversation, and we'll have it sometime, I promise. But right now, you've got to trust me. Abby can't know. I don't think she's in danger, at least not yet. He said he'd stay away from you."

"And you trust him?" Connor demanded, almost laughing at the absurdity of the idea.

"...to play his game by his rules, yeah, I do." Danny hesitated. "Connor, what happened between them-"

"You think he still wants to kill her?"

"Try it the other way."

Connor's brain couldn't even process that. He'd seen Abby through seven years of ups and downs, including at the depths of despair in the Cretaceous. What his friend seemed to be suggesting-

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "It's _Abby_."

Danny sighed. "Is she still having nightmares?"

Connor nodded; then he realized Danny couldn't hear him nod. It was hard to actually admit, though. When the whole thing first happened, Abby hardly slept at all. He remember holding her through several long nights as she curled up into a defensive ball and wept, terrified by whatever it was she'd seen and done on the other side. That stage passed, and they'd both assumed the nightmares would pass, as well. But they never did. It was only two nights ago that Abby woke up shouting something frightened and angry, drenched with sweat and reluctant to come back to herself, then clutched him tightly and trembled for an hour before she could sleep again. How Danny knew that...

"Yeah," Connor admitted. "More nights than not, yeah. But that doesn't mean she'd-"

"You weren't there. If she learns he's out and thinks he's coming for you, or God forbid, your child- I absolutely think she'll do all she can to find him and kill him again. And then you'll never be out, will you?" Danny left that hanging in the air, then concluded, "Give me twenty-four hours."

Lost, frightened, Connor finally surrendered. "Yeah, all right. Twenty-four hours."

"I'll send you the data. Thanks."

Danny hung up the phone, and Connor sunk back into the sofa, thinking dark thoughts. He'd just managed to rouse himself and started rummaging around on autopilot for his spare control pad when he heard Abby moving about in the other room.

"Connor?" she called. "Everything all right? Who was that?"

"No one," Connor said. "Wrong number."

Really _wrong number,_ he thought, before turning off the X-Box in disgust. Suddenly the whole 'living dead' thing struck him as just a bit of a bad omen...

* * *

**Washington, D.C. - Tuesday**

Danny Quinn stirred, met the eyes of the most powerful man in the Western world. He'd never liked telling stories, but he still knew when he had an audience's full attention.

"Connor looked at the numbers and said they were temporal coordinates. A list of times and places to try. Lisa was right. There's a search on. Why, what for- I don't know.

"But I lied to you, sir. I said we came to Washington tracking that anomaly. The fact is, I think it was tracking us. And the only thing I can think of, the only edge we might have against whoever set this bastard free, is something only you can give me."

He reached into his jacket and produced several sheets of printed paper, which he handed to the President. The other man spent several moments scanning them, his frown ever deepening.

Finally, the Chief of Staff stirred. "What are those?"

"Presidential pardon papers." The President held them up. "For a Major Antonio Rivera- Southfield's Chief of Security."

The Chief of Staff stared at Danny, incredulous. "Isn't he the one who actually carried out their acts of terrorism? Who betrayed this nation and killed your friends with his own hands?"

"Yeah," Danny admitted. "Life's funny. He's the only person I know who might be able to track down his boss. If we don't do that, and soon, I don't know what will happen. I don't know whether you've noticed, sir, but it happens to be Tuesday."

The President held Danny Quinn's gaze for a long moment. Then he reached across his desk for a pen. Danny had learned enough about politics to know he was putting his career in Danny's hands. If a man as dangerous as Rivera was pardoned without cause, if he so much as ran a stoplight for the rest of his life... that was the sort of thing that ruined political lives.

Of course, if the Director found what he was looking for, that could ruin_ worlds_, and Danny wouldn't allow that. Nor would he allow his friends to be hurt again; no matter how many years had passed, Connor and Abby were part of his team, _his_ responsibility, and Danny intended to protect them.

No matter what.


	5. Act Four

**Primeval: Area 94 **("Tuesday")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act Four**

In the Roosevelt Room of the White House, so named for one of two American presidents (even the Americans present couldn't be bothered to track which one), Danny Quinn's team was growing slightly restless- and, in the case of their newest member, adrenaline was fading into shell-shocked wonder.

"I can't believe I shot a brachiosaurus with a tank," Captain Vance said, shaking his head.

Duncan shrugged. "I can't believe you can drive a tank,"

"They actually teach us to do that."

"The dinosaur hunting, you sort of have to play by ear," Lisa Barrett added.

The others might have been about to notice Sharon Clarke was quiet, which was certainly not her practice in the wake of a successful mission. But she dealt with the problem herself by getting up with a decisive air and walking over to Vance.

"Can I talk to you for a second?"

Vance shrugged and allowed himself to be led to the other side of the room, more or less out of earshot.

"I just want to be clear," Sharon said, "about what happened back in Santa Monica."

"Forget it, ma'am," said Vance. "Just doing my job."

Sharon frowned. "No, you stopped doing your job in order to do _my_ job. I'm nobody's damsel."

"Congratulations, ma'am. I'm not much of a knight."

"Okay, well..." Sharon hissed; she'd been worked for the CIA a long time, used to watching her own back and cleaning up her own messes. She'd grudgingly learned to be a team player over the last year-plus- so long as the others on her team gave her a wide berth and let her do her thing. "I could have gotten out of that, so next time, just let me handle it."

"No, ma'am," Vance said, so politely it took her a moment to realize what he'd actually said.

"Sorry... _no_?"

"No, ma'am," he repeated, still very well-mannered. "You were on my team in there. If you think I would _ever_ leave a comrade-in-arms in danger, regardless of sex, creed, or color, you don't understand me at all."

Sharon sighed. "I know you think that makes you soundcool, but a man who needs to be a hero is dangerous."

"I used to agree," said Vance, "but then your superiors started reading people's e-mails for a living and I thought, hell. _Somebody's_ got to do the hero thing."

Sharon blinked a couple of times. "So... you're saying you saved my life...?"

"Out of contempt for everything you stand for, yes."

"Well..." Sharon hesitated, at a loss. "Fair enough..."

Vance nodded to her, turned around, and resumed his seat. Sharon was still puzzling out what the hell just happened when her team leader made his reappearance. He held up a sheaf of papers for the others to inspect.

"You got it?" Lisa said.

"I got it," said Danny. "Let's go round up our psychopath..."

* * *

Another afternoon, another Supermax prison- this one in Texas, where perhaps the most dangerous man in the world had been sent to sort out whether or not he was actually dangerous. Danny and Lisa did their best to wait patiently until the door on the other side of the visiting room glass opened, admitting Major Antonio Rivera and guard.

Once tall, strong, and proud in the manner of a Marine, Rivera had the decency to show the strain his employer did not: He was haggard, unshaven, visibly uncomfortable in the presence of other people. His gaze darted around like a rodent trapped in unfamiliar surroundings, searching for danger. Then the gaze fell on Danny and Lisa.

"Danny Quinn," he rasped. "I never thought you'd show yourself again, you son of a bitch!"

"Tony," Danny said with a slight nod. "Sorry I didn't visit."

"You're lucky there's glass between us, or I'd be shoving your visitor's pass up your-" Rivera took a deadly step toward Danny, startling the guard, who pulled him back. He made a show of being harmless, though his eyes still burned with hatred.

"You can go," Lisa said, flashing her ID for the guard. "They're old friends."

The guard sat Rivera down and waited several moments to make sure he wouldn't charge the glass before stepping back. He nodded to Danny and Lisa before exiting, leaving them in a staring match with a man who'd spent more than a year with nothing but time to practice.

Danny cleared his throat. "I know we've had our differences-"

"Differences?" Rivera laughed. "Are you _insane?_ We were on the same side! I looked up to you, man! Then one day last year, I came in to work and said 'Good morning. Want a donut?' And _you_ said 'You're under arrest for treason!'"

Danny shrugged; he didn't know what else to do. It might have been perfectly true that Tony Rivera was taken off guard by his arrest; the whole Universe had shifted, and some people had led entirely different lives. It was also true that Rivera, in the old Universe, had murdered at least three people and had been an intransigent Southfield fanatic, stopped by Danny's ARC colleague, Captain Hilary Becker, only at the expense of Becker's own life. Danny and Becker were friends; it was hard not to hold his killer responsible, even if he was technically still alive.

"I'm sorry about that..." Danny said weakly.

"You're _sorry_ for sending me to jail on bogus charges? Thanks, Danny, that means a lot!"

"They weren't bogus."

Rivera scoffed. "If I'd committed treason, I think I'd know it!"

"Not necessarily," Lisa sighed.

Rivera slammed a fist into the glass. "What the hell does that even mean?"

Danny shook his head and recited the facts he knew: "You were contacted by a group called Southfield. You admitted as much under interrogation."

"I didn't 'admit' anything! I told the truth: When I got back from Iraq, I was at a real low point. A couple of characters showed up, offering me a chance to change the past- which sounded pretty good at the time. But nothing came of it, because- oh, yeah- _there's no such thing as time machines_!" Rivera buried his head in his hands, to all appearances broken. "The whole thing was just a sick joke. I never should have played along, but I wasn't myself then. I never_ did_ anything."

"Yeah," Danny said, thinking of the information he possessed, of the awful timeline-shifting machine destroyed by Abby, Becker, and Matt Anderson. Without that machine, Southfield's power in the current Universe had always been too limited to pose much threat. "But you would have done something, Tony. If they'd been able to prove it- if time machines had been real- you would have joined them. You would have done awful things. You would have killed people for their promise of a new world."

Rivera stared at them and slowly, madly, started laughing. "Hell, Danny, maybe you're right. Maybe I would have run off to Santa's workshop if it were real. I don't know."

Now it was Danny's turn to hit the glass, with the familiar metal card clutched in his fist. "Don't you dare mock this, you bastard! I don't care what you believe; people died and you will never, ever joke! Understood?"

"Sure," Rivera said, evidently surprised.

Danny gestured with the card. "Recognize this? It's a temporal inhibitor."

"Is that from _Star Trek_?"

"It protects the memory from timeline changes. That's how I know you killed my friends- because I was there, in another reality, and saw it all happen. The Director called them MRC's, which means Southfield had them, too. The might have handed them out like candy. If you had one of these little black cards on you when you died, Tony, you_ are_ the same man, no matter what the record says."

"I didn't," Rivera said. "I've never seen that thing before, I swear! I have no idea what you're talking about!"

Danny hissed. "I wish I could believe you."

The two men held each other's eyes until Lisa determined their contest had wasted enough time, and checked her watch. "Maybe we should finish this on the plane."

Rivera frowned. "Are you going already?"

"Yeah," Danny said, "and so are you. If you behave yourself."

He held up the pardon papers in his other hand. If Rivera didn't know (or pretended not to know) the temporal inhibitor, his interest in the papers signed by the President was obvious and unconcealed. He stared at them like a starving man at a seven-course meal, and Danny knew he was hooked.

Whether this particular fish was too dangerous to string along was another question altogether, and not one he looked forward to answering...

* * *

Outside the prison, Duncan was baking in a rented car and trying to distract himself by listening to the radio, which would have been easier if the people in the seats in front of him weren't quite so absorbed in their private battles. They hadn't stopped squabbling all during the flight or the drive afterward, but now they finally seemed to have run out of words, or at least run low on oxygen temporarily.

Duncan kept looking toward the doors of the facility. "I wonder what's taking so long."

"Well, they have to explain all time and space to the guy, so..." Sharon shrugged. Then, having reloaded her lungs, she turned to Vance again. "By the way, what I do for a living is keep people alive. You and I are in the same business."

The marine didn't change expression, but somehow conveyed grave skepticism. "No, ma'am. I end wars, you start them."

Sharon made a sound halfway between a snort and a suppressed howl of fury. "...what are you, a Democrat?"

"I don't think I have to divulge that in a free country," Vance smiled. "But you're not really Ms. Family Values CIA yourself."

"I happen to _like _family values!" sputtered Sharon, who in fairness was holding her temper admirably, considering how tired she must have been of fending off people's assumptions based on her looks. "I was raised on a little farm in Nebraska, Captain! What bastion of holiness are _you_ from?"

"Bed-Stuy, in Brooklyn."

"Oh!" she said. "New York City, I might have known! I could smell the arrogant condescension a mile away!"

Vance arched an eyebrow. "Funny, last time I was on a farm, what I smelled wasn't _anything_ like condescension..."

Before Sharon could formulate a comeback, Duncan pushed past them both and cranked the radio up to levels he hoped would finally drown them out- or burst everyone's eardrums and kill them all.

"Don't mind me, yeah? Just pretend I'm not here."

For a second, he thought Sharon was going to lose her temper in the wrong direction. Fortunately, at that moment she was interrupted, as the facility doors opened.

"Here they come," Sharon said, as the doors admitted three figures, two of them welcome. The third was more of a wild card.

At the moment, however, Duncan didn't much care if Major Rivera was innocent or guilty. Just so he wasn't talkative, they'd get along fine.

* * *

Half an hour later, as their U.S. Military jet burned westward, racing the sun to the end of Tuesday, the petty squabbling had reached a lull, only to be replaced by an even less polite struggle:

"Let's say for a moment you're not insane," Major Rivera told Danny and Lisa. "How can I possibly prove I don't have memories of a Universe that no longer exists?"

"I don't know," Danny said. "I don't think you can."

"Well, that kind of sucks, because I never betrayed this team. I never would. The person you hate so much was a different man."

"Same man," Lisa said. "Different choices."

"Same difference." Rivera said. "Just imagine I'm telling the truth for a second: If I never had one of those cards, won't this Director know? Why should he trust me?"

Danny shook his head. "He won't, either way. But he can't take the chance."

Rivera took an extra beat to process that. "You mean, he'll come to kill me."

"Yeah. If he thinks you might know something, yeah."

"It won't get that far," said Lisa. "Just set up a meet. We'll do the rest."

"My friend gave me evidence of Southfield's crimes on a flash drive," Danny admitted. "The drive's memory was protected, just like mine. It contains several of their contact protocols."

"If you use one," Lisa continued, "the Director will think you remember. At least, he'll think it's possible. He'll agree to meet you. Help us recapture him, and you're free to go."

Rivera looked from one to other, shaking his head. Then he met Danny's eyes.

"I'll do it," he said. "But not just to get free. I want you to know you were wrong about me, Danny. You dropped me in hell for a year, for _nothing._ I want you to live with that."

Danny nodded. If Rivera's revenge took only the form of guilt- if that was all the price he had to pay to keep Tuesday an innocuous word on the calendar and Southfield from rising again, he would pay that glady.

Sometimes, he wondered if Abby Maitland had any idea what she was asking of him when she entrusted Danny Quinn- and him alone- with the knowledge of that terrible alternate world. In moments like this one, he understood: She did know. It was worth that to her. So it was worth it to Danny, too. As a policeman, as a brother, as a teammate, he'd lived by his loyalty. If someday he had to die the same way... well, there were worse fates.

The fate that had befallen Tony Rivera, to name only one example.

* * *

They re-entered California fifteen minutes later, but their odyssey was far from ended. Their next destination, the site of the hoped-for meeting, was about as far from Beverly Hills and Laguna Beach as it was possible to get within the same state- or, perhaps, the same world.

The barren dunes and impossible rock formations of Death Valley, in the Mojave Desert, stretched out to the horizon before their rented SUV. The heat was already peeling the paint off the car and, it seemed, the flesh off their bones. Danny alternated swipes of his brow with swigs from a water bottle, and he hadn't even stepped out of the shade yet.

Beside him at the wheel, Lisa was implacable as ever, eyes on the road, her thoughts kept to herself. Duncan was unusually quiet, too, having abandoned thoughts of the radio in favor of his emergency MP3 player. Rivera was sullen, as an innocent man drafted into service probably would be. But then, a guilty man might act the same way.

Meanwhile, in the middle seat, the charade of civil dialogue continued between Sharon Clarke and Andre Vance, to everyone's dismay.

Sharon gestured emphatically. "All I'm saying is, I wasn't born with a silver spoon! I fought for everything I have, and if I can do it-"

Vance arched an eyebrow. "So you think a flawless blonde farm girl faces similar challenges to a poor black kid in the city? Really?"

Sharon's expression said they might not have been as dissimilar as he thought, but then she got a gleam in her eye and changed tactics: "Flawless, huh? That explains it. I knew you were posturing to impress me. Nice try, but next time, be a little less obvious."

Cheap shot or not_, that_ finally cracked the perfect-soldier facade, and Vance turned on her. "Okay, get over yourself, Rapunzel! I'm not here to-"

"Oh, will the pair of you just _shut up_?" Duncan pleaded. "I am trying to hear Weird Al!"

Lisa borrowed Danny's water bottle and took a long drink. "I'm with him on this one. Really."

"Fine," Sharon sighed. "Can I have some water?"

"Can you be quiet?"

The blonde woman smirked at her superior and grabbed the bottle. Danny was trying hard not to be amused by the whole thing, but Rivera cleared his throat, bringing their bigger problems to mind.

"How much further?"

"For us, not far," Lisa said. In fact, she pulled over to the side of the road as she spoke.

Danny turned and pointed to the craggy rocks with a grin. "For you, it's another half-kilometer that way."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding..."

"He might be watching your approach," Lisa said apologetically. "Get into position. We'll back your play."

Rivera's snort showed what he thought of that. Sharon, who'd never cared much for the major _before _he was a traitor, shoved the water bottle into his hands.

"Be sure to apply sunblock. I'd hate to see you burn to a crisp and die."

Nobody in the vehicle actually would have hated that very much, and Rivera knew it. He looked from one of them to the next. "My pardon's already signed. How do you know I won't just slip away?"

"Oh, I think you will," Danny said. "Then I'll get to track you down and hurt you for what he did. But if you're _not _him... prove it."

Rivera sighed, made another doubtful appraisal of the desert, then opened the door. A blast of heat nearly roasted them all, but he turned his shoulder into it and marched up into the rocks without a backward glance.

He'd just vanished from sight when Vance murmured, "How long do we give him?"

"Long enough to make sure the Director's eyes are on him and not us," Lisa said.

As the others settled back into their seat, Sharon found the thread of her conversation with Vance. "_Rapunzel_? Seriously? That is such a lame way to-"

Something slammed into the windshield in mid-sentence, nearly shattering it and startlingSharon into silence that didn't seem quite so blessed as it would have earlier.

"What the hell...?" Lisa looked all around, but the cracked glass obscured her vision.

Something else nearly smashed a rear window, provoking a yelp from Duncan.

Vance said, "I can get out and-"

"No," said Danny. "Look."

He'd spotted something creeping through the rocks toward the SUV- a dark, predatory shape with broad shoulders and lean limbs, distorted features, wicked spines and tufts of hair at odd angles, and the most terrifying red eyes. To Danny, it looked for all the world like a future predator's family pet.

"Great," Sharon said. "More wolves."

"Nothing like that in the fossil record," Duncan said. "It might be some sort of future canid..."

"It's not a dog or a wolf," Lisa hissed. Several more black shapes could be seen now, creeping up on the SUV from all directions, along with the awful stench that seemed to surround them. "I'm from Texas originally. Sharon, didn't you ever know any creatures that carried off livestock on that farm?"

"Yeah," Sharon said. "We called them foxes."

"We called them _chupacabra._"

Danny remember the name from legend: reptile-wolf creatures of both the West and Latin America, bloodsuckers with all manner of odd powers, cut from the same cloth as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. He'd seen a thing or two in his day, including mushroom zombies and a semi-real dragon, but nothing like that. He was about to tell Lisa how uncharacteristically mad her theory was.

Then another of them slammed headfirst into his window, and he lost his train of thought...

* * *

Exhausted, sunburned, with bloody fingernails and a thousand cuts and scrapes, Antonio Rivera pulled himself up a final ledge and into the blessed darkness of a cave cut into a twisting spire of rock. He lay there for a long moment, panting like a winded dog, until his eyes adjusted to the light levels around him...

The cave was carved, all right, but its walls were much too smooth and rounded to be natural. Some of them were covered with metal and even electronics, various buttons and dials that performed unknown functions...

_Great,_ Rivera thought._ I've made it to the Bat-Cave. Now what?_

Fortunately, somebody pulled back the hammer on a pistol a little distance away, which tended to dispel confusion. Rivera rolled over on his side, to find a graying, middle-aged, sharp-eyed man standing over him: The Director of Southfield's American branch.

"I never thought I'd see you again," the older man rasped. "Hello, Major. I'm going to ask you just a few questions to settle your loyalties. And I really suggest you give the right answers... for your sake."

He gestured with the gun to the center of the cavern, where Rivera saw a large pit had been dug out, like a bowl twenty feet deep. At the bottom of the bowl, dozens of misshapen black forms, wolf-like with sharp fangs and red eyes, alternately dozing and waking and growling insistently for new prey...


	6. Act Five

**Primeval: Area 94 **("Tuesday")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act Five**

Rivera scrambled to his feet and gestured for peace, although the cold eyes of the Director seemed to offer none. The muzzle of the pistol he held did not waver.

"Sir, it's me! I tricked them into letting me go!"

"Did you?" The older man arched an eyebrow. "We'll see. Remember all our games of poker, Major? I don't think you ever successfully bluffed me."

Rivera scoffed. "We never played poker. I thought you were an arrogant prick. I only followed your orders because I thought you could get me what I wanted."

Despite himself, the Director looked slightly impressed. "And what was that?"

"Redemption."

The Director studied him for a long moment. Rivera thought he might lower his weapon, but he just shook his head.

"I have little to offer you now," he said. "This minor hiding place, and a few minor tricks, are all that remain of an empire that would have stretched through the ages."

"With the_ right_ tricks, that might be enough," said Rivera. "Those double anomalies were a pretty good trick. What were you looking for?"

The Director looked up sharply; his finger tightened on the trigger. "The thing we always wanted. _My_ Major Rivera would know that."

"Helen Cutter," he said quickly, before the other could grow too unpleasantly suspicious. "But... how? We were never able to bring her back, no matter how many times we tried!"

The Director shrugged. "Ironic, isn't it? All our efforts, wasted. And then Abby Maitland did it accidentally. For that, she gets to live a while longer."

"But how do you know Helen's alive?"

The older man smiled. "Patience, Major. You'll have to prove yourself before you get the details."

The Director crossed to the nearest wall and adjusted a dial on one of the electronic panels. Something whirred at the edge of Rivera's hearing- an ultrasonic pulse of some kind- and the creatures in the pit began to stir. Apparently the sonic pulse kept them under control; but the director was capable of removing that control, or even driving them into a frenzy.

"Now," said the older man, "where's my friend Danny? Please know if you lie to me, the chupacabra will rip you limb from limb."

Rivera took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. _So, yeah. This is going about how I expected..._

* * *

Back at the SUV, Danny Quinn's chupacabra problem had reached an even more advanced stage; the nasty beasts snarled at every window, leaping and hissing and growling.

"Duncan," he said conversationally, "you're the expert. Any chance these things are herbivores?"

"Eh... not from the dentition, no. Or the smell."

"Well, I took a shot..."

A creature leaped up onto the hood of the SUV, its red eyes boring into Danny's as it closed in. Another smashed through Sharon Clarke's window, and she beat it away with the stock of her EMD.

The creature on the hood leaped up on the windscreen, its razor-sharp claws making an awful noise as it scratched long grooves into the glass. Danny pulled a conventional pistol from the glove box and shot out the glass himself, knocking the chupacabra head over tail to the ground. But two more appeared to replace it, and now Danny and Lisa had to discourage each one individually.

Behind him, Duncan yelped as the creatures broke his window, too. He dropped both his EMD and his MP3 player, and scrambling around on the floor desperately, he came up holding the wrong one. A chupacabra cocked its head curiously at the innocuous shape of the MP3 player; Duncan shrugged and cranked it up to maximum volume, blasting the creature's sensitive, future predator-like ears with a wave of brutal sound. It fell away from the window with a squeal.

That gave Danny an idea.

"How sturdy is that thing?" he asked Duncan.

Duncan shrugged. "She's been through it, all right. Even built a reinforced case for her. I hate replacing things."

"Tell you what," Danny said. "I'll replace it for you, if you throw it away right now."

He held Duncan's eyes until the younger man understood. He nodded gravely, as though coming to a desperate decision.

"Right. Miss you, sweetheart..."

Duncan reared back and threw the MP3 player out the window, locked on its top volume. The chupacabra around the car, particularly sensitive to sonic waves, all ran to chase the most obvious source of them- leaving the car doors, temporarily, unblocked.

"Everyone out!" Danny said. "Move it! Move!"

As the pack clustered around the MP3 player, Danny's team broke from cover: Him and Lisa, then Sharon and Duncan running headlong for the rocks, with Captain Vance bringing up the rear, covering them with an EMD rifle. One of the chupacabra noticed their flight and raced after them with nightmare eyes reflecting the sunlight.

Vance fired several bolts, but it was coming in very fast, and he was a hair too late in tracking it. It closed the distance between them and leaped- only to be shot point-blank by Sharon Clarke, who'd doubled back when she noticed Vance's distress and pushed him to the ground at the last second.

He nodded as she offered him a hand up. "Thanks."

"Forget it. I like a knight in shining distress."

"Keep running!" Danny called from up ahead. "Come on, we've gotta go!"

More and more chupacabra were perking up to join the chase, and soon half the pack was nipping at their heels. Duncan stumbled a couple of times, but Sharon and Vance just hauled him to his feet and kept dragging him along. Danny was just looking over his shoulder, wondering if there was any place to run or if they'd simply avoid the beasts long enough to bake in the sun-

-when an anomaly appeared, directly in front of him, and swallowed up the team.

They reappeared moments later inside a dark, blessedly cool cave, beside the Director, Tony Rivera, and a few dozen sleeping chupacabra. Danny looked around at the strange facility, somehow protected from the timeshift, and sighed. They seemed to keep progressing from the frying pan to the fire, particularly with both their former enemies armed and locked on. Danny raised his EMD in response-

"Squeeze that trigger, Danny, and every creature in this cavern will attack your team." The Director twisted a dial on the wall to demonstrate; the sleeping creatures stirred. "They're sedated now, but we keep them _ravenous_."

Danny turned an accusing glare on Rivera, who shrugged.

"Sorry, Danny. Come to think of it, I _might_ have been carrying one of those little black squares. I thought it was a debit card. Go figure."

"Just let me kill the son of a bitch," Sharon murmured. "Lord, just give me five seconds to snap his neck, and then I'm yours..."

"Sharon," Danny said quietly, "put it down."

Slowly, careful not to provoke anything, Danny dropped his EMD on the ground and kicked it away, then watched his team follow suit. The Director shook his head in mock disapproval.

"Really, Danny? After the warning I gave you, you couldn't have waited to come after me until Wednesday?"

"You know me," Danny shrugged. "Where angels fear to tread..."

"Yes. I'll miss that about you." The Director turned to Rivera. "Prove yourself, Major. Shoot our friend."

"Yes, sir," said Rivera, and he raised a pistol.

"NO!" cried Vance, and he ran to Danny's side, ready to take the bullet himself...

And then Rivera turned and put _several_ bullets into the wall panel beside the Director. It sparked and shorted out, scalding the evil old man, as in the pit below, the chupacabra stirred to full wakefulness and began using those awful claws to scale the wall of their prison...

The Director turned on Rivera, livid. "Traitor! I'll kill you myself!"

Rivera knocked his gun away with a sudden lunge and slammed the older man against the wall. "For the last time, _I'm not a traitor! Danny_ told me about Helen Cutter! As for the 'arrogant prick' thing... well, that was just a guess. Felt right."

The Director sized him up for a moment and started laughing. "Nicely done, Major. But if you've forgotten everything else, remember this... I'm still smarter than you."

He brought up his fist toward Rivera's face, clutching a silver orb that burst like a flash grenade, dazzling the younger man's eyes. Rivera staggered back and nearly fell into the chasm before Sharon and Vance managed to snag him. Meanwhile, the Director turned and detonated another orb against the ground, creating a swirling double anomaly.

"The big one leads to the future, Danny!" the old man laughed. "Enjoy the predators..."

He was still laughing as an awful, sonic keening emerged through the larger of the two anomalies, and laughing even harder as he ducked through the smaller one. Danny shared a glance with Lisa and took off in pursuit. The silver-gold glow surrounded him, and he stepped out...

Onto that same beach from the previous day, the tropical island motif now slightly spoiled by dozens of dead fish which were strewn along the sand. The stench was awful, and Danny guessed that interested parties were already beginning to take notice...

The Director turned a hundred eighty degrees in confusion. "Wrong... this is wrong..."

"No, it's the right beach." Danny shrugged. "We just switched the timeline a bit. You're a million years in the future."

"But... how?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. Worry about _that_."

Danny pointed behind the Director, where several plodding, sea lion-like shapes were beginning to emerge from the sea. Danny recognized them from the ARC's files as mer-creatures, though he'd never seen one up close before. In the distance, giant insects were homing in, and furtive sounds could be heard in the trees beyond the beach, as well... he'd chosen one of the most dangerous time periods on record, for the specific purpose of making a point.

Danny Quinn's family and friends- which were one and the same to him- were _not_ to be trifled with.

"Oh, sorry," he told the Director, when the other's confusion didn't lift. "We did know about your little hidey-hole. It was in the files I got from Abby. We've had a team nearby all day, setting up. But I'm afraid they've left quite a mess on this beach..."

The Director looked around in terror; what they'd left was a killing ground, sufficient to drive several of the most merciless predators of all time to a feeding frenzy. And he clearly knew it. The mer-creatures weren't far away now, and their fellow predators were only a few moments behind. The Director patted down his pockets, and came up dry...

"No more little orbs?" Danny shrugged. "That's a shame. If you're wondering how I sabotaged the ones you had- well, that's why I needed Connor Temple to interpret the data I recovered. He didn't just figure the coordinates. He worked out how you were moving the anomalies. Apparently he's been tinkering in his retirement. Only don't tell Abby- I hear she's been sort of cross lately."

The Director stammered, and tried to work out words, and for once was left with nothing.

Danny laughed. "The big anomaly now leads back to the point of origin; I'm guessing that's the chupacabra's den. They'll probably break for home the moment they escape your trap, and then it'll be sealed behind them. This one... well, I wanted something special for this one."

The Director shook his head and laughed. "You win, Danny. I'm your prisoner."

"Yeah, you are." Danny pulled a set of handcuffs from his pocket and bound the Director, patted him down for any hidden tricks, and was satisfied as to his helplessness. He started pulling him back toward the anomaly-

"Just know that I'll never stop," the old man said. "I can escape from that cell again and again and _again_, and one day I'll restore everything that's mine. I'll even look in on your friends- and perhaps we'll find out whether Abby can actually kill me."

Danny stopped. He'd been anticipating that reaction- and he'd already worked out what had to happen if the Director was set on that course.

"No," he said, "we won't."

He hauled the Director a few steps in the other direction and pushed him down into the surf. The other man coughed and spluttered, now with three mer-creatures closing around him, and a fourth just breaking the surface. The Director's struggling only drew the predators of all kinds faster...

"Come on, Danny!" he said. "You're not going to leave me here! We both know you'd never do that! _Danny_!"

Danny Quinn turned on his heel and walked back toward the anomaly. In a sense, the Director was right. The old Danny Quinn- the English lawman from the 21st Century- never would have contemplated such a thing. He would have found the idea repulsive, unthinkable. But he was not just that man anymore. He was Danny Quinn, half-savage survivor of the Pliocene, the man who did whatever it took to stay alive, and who'd spent over a year cultivating a very American sense of revenge-as-justice. That man had no problem letting a tinpot dictator die in order to protect two innocent kids whose lives he'd nearly destroyed. No problem at all.

"By the way," he called over his shoulder, "Connor explained your Arthur Dent joke. That was clever. Well, so long, and thanks for all the- you know."

He closed his eyes tight as he stepped through the anomaly, unwilling to stay and watch the inevitable conclusion, but he still heard the Director, thrashing around in the surf as the mer-creatures moved in.

"Danny! You can't do this! You _can't!_ It was supposed to be my day..."

Danny took another step, and the future with all its unpleasant consequences disappeared. The anomaly locked behind him almost immediately; as predicted, the chupacabra were already gone from the cave, and Lisa Barrett had the situation well in hand. She turned a curious look on Danny...

"If Connor or Abby ever ask," he said quietly, "he's still in the Supermax."

"Yeah," Lisa said, and that was all.

Tony Rivera was enjoying an actual laugh with the others, but he broke off to approach Danny and thump him on the back. "See? We're still a pretty good team. Admit it, I had you going."

"Yeah," Danny said. "You did."

"You should have trusted me. You owe me an apology, my friend."

"No," Danny said. "Well, maybe for this..."

He pulled Rivera's pardon papers from his jacket and ripped them in half. They'd never actually been filed anywhere. No official move had been made to free Tony Rivera at all. How could it be? He'd never been officially imprisoned. And now he would go back to just where he had started the day: Nowhere at all.

Rivera gaped at him. "What the hell? We had a deal!"

"Sorry, Tony, but you're right: I can never be _really_ sure you didn't have a card, and I can't take chances. Not with this. You're my responsibility now. You'll still get out from time to time... if you behave yourself."

"You son of a bitch!"

Rivera launched himself at Danny, but Andre Vance appeared from nowhere and twisted his arm behind his back, dropping him to the ground. He waited for Rivera to cease struggling before loosening his grip, but the other man's eyes still burned into Danny's, accusing him of all the things he'd actually done and more...

"I know where you are if I need you," Danny said, and walked away.

* * *

Some hours later and finally back on the Coast, Duncan and Sharon Clarke were down in Area 94's holding tank, tossing fish to an excited plesiosaur.

"Okay," Duncan said, "now watch this. This trick's good..."

Sharon laughed as he tossed the fish high in the air, and Chessie waited for it to complete an entire loop before snagging it just above the water. She reached down for another mackerel, to try the trick herself...

"Hey," said a voice behind them. "Got a second?"

Sharon frowned at Duncan, who sighed. "Yeah, I know how it goes. Nobody loves me but my plesiosaur. Come on, Chessie..."

When the portly fellow had walked to the other side of the tank, Sharon turned to meet the eyes of Captain Andre Vance, who stood a few meters away, his posture and bearing as perfect at the end of a long day as they ever were- which is to say, completely. But his brown eyes were slightly chastened.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I appreciated the save back there. And while I may not approve of all your methods, I can respect that our goals are the same."

Sharon nodded. "And that's... all you have to say?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Sharon tossed her hair, mindful of her walk as she approached him in a new persona, one of her most successful _femme fatale_ guises. She positioned herself an inch from Captain Vance, just short of pressing herself against him.

"That's a shame. I was just thinking... there's clearly a _chemistry_ thing happening here. I'm not military anymore, so it's not against the rules- and Danny certainly can't object. Everybody knows he's in love with Lisa. So... maybe sometime... you and I...?"

Her fingertips barely grazed the line of his jaw. She batted her blue eyes and let her tongue play across her lips- just for an instant, nothing gross- and she turned on her most dazzling smile.

And Andre Vance arched an eyebrow, unmoved. In fact, he was just short of laughing at her.

Sharon stepped back, annoyed. "Okay, seriously. That was my_ best_ work, and you didn't even blink. Yes, I was just going to reject and humiliate you, but that's no excuse for not buying it. So... married, gay, or eunuch?"

"No, ma'am," Vance said. "I guess 'flawless' just isn't my type."

He turned on his heel and walked out the door, leaving Sharon momentarily at a loss. Then her lips turned upward in a small smile.

"Oh, it's _on._.."

Someone cleared his throat behind her. Duncan. "Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing- well, I could have. Didn't want to. You... still don't like him, right?"

"Not a bit," Sharon said. "He's a self-righteous jerk."

"So... why do you care if he...?"

Sharon turned to Duncan with the brilliant smile back in place and clapped him on the shoulders. "It's for the glory of Nebraska, Duncan. For the glory of Nebraska..."

She could feel the British analyst's eyes on her as she left the holding area, radiating confusion. Then she heard Duncan's footsteps, walking away. Sometimes she thought the plesiosaur was the only one in America _he_ understood, too...

* * *

Late at night, with most of Command shut down around him, Danny Quinn stood in the midst of his new domain and wondered what had become of him. He was so busy wondering, he almost didn't hear the approaching footsteps.

"Those were some hard calls today," Lisa murmured. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Danny said. "'Course. Had to be done."

Lisa didn't pursue that, but stepped to his side and frowned at him. "Look... I think I owe you an apology for what I said about your brother. For better or worse, your love for Patrick made you who you are, and that is anything but worthless."

Danny smiled at her. "Thought I was damaged."

"Well, you are." Lisa returned the smile. "Little bit."

"It's just..." Danny sighed, his eyes drifting away. "I couldn't have done what I did a few years ago. Then there was Helen, the Pliocene, having my history altered by the Director. I hated him for that. And I killed him. I mean, he deserved it and I was protecting my friends, but... I _hated_ him."

Lisa watched Danny for a long moment, chewed on that, and said, "Okay."

"Okay, what?"

She tossed up her hands. "Okay, fine! I guess I'll fix you!"

He blinked. "What, really?"

"No, you idiot!" she smacked him on the arm. "Not really! People can't be_ fixed._ You just have to live with it. You have to get there. But I'll help."

Danny smiled at her and took her arm and said, "Okay."

He turned out the lights, and they walked out of Command together.

* * *

In a jail cell in Texas, a most unhappy man sat brooding- until a brilliant golden light split reality itself, and an anomaly formed inside the bars. Smiling, Major Rivera rose from his bunk and stepped through...

Into a tropical paradise. Warm, evening sun. Cool breezes. Rolling surf. And a beautiful woman in casual clothing, making a fire on the beach just ahead.

Rivera approached her, feeling how wonderful it was to stretch his muscles after so much time pretending to be locked up, and then the sudden violence of the mission for Danny. He waved to the woman, and she waved back.

"Is it done?" she asked when he was in earshot.

He nodded. "Danny killed the Director, just like you said."

"Well, of course he did," she replied, and turned a brilliant smile on Rivera. "After all, Danny killed _me._"

Rivera stood back and gazed at Helen Cutter- their founder, the object of all their hopes, and for his money, the most desirable genius ever put on Earth. Helen knew how he felt, but strung him along, offering frequent promises and occasional rewards in exchange for loyal help. He didn't care. If that was what it took to accomplish her plan- to win _redemption_- he was more than willing.

"I hated to do it," Helen said, taking his hand, "but the fool was really getting far ahead of himself. He thought he was a god, at the end."

"And you don't need the competition?"

Helen smiled. "What I need is help- against Connor and Abby, and their friends. They'll never approve of what we're doing."

Rivera shrugged. "Then they'll die."

"Don't underestimate them," Helen warned. "I know they look like a couple of kewpie dolls, but they destroyed an entire timeline."

"I know," Rivera said, "but I'd do anything for you."

Helen placed a hand on his chest. "Patience, Tony. We've only finished stage one. Stage two will take some time- but it began today."

Rivera looked around at the idyllic setting, breathed in a lungful of salt air. "When are we, anyway? I know that last portal was getting pretty close."

Helen nodded. "The day is 14 June, 1938. It's a Tuesday..."

Rivera sat down beside the fire, and Helen leaned against him to watch the sunset at the end of the world.

**The End**

___...of this story. But coming in two weeks..._

_"__Just imagine... there used to be another world, and you and I were friends..."_

_"__If ____there are dinosaurs and__ if ____there are people who hunted dinosaurs and __if ____I was ever one of those people, then there's one thing I can tell you right now, absolutely: Run."_

_"__We have lives now. Ordinary lives. There's nothing wrong with that."  
"Unless you're capable of more."_

_"____As a matter of fact, I did something horrible. Absolutely unforgivable. I asked her to marry me."_

_"__So many life and death decisions... the ARC's a poor place to find redemption."  
"Yeah. But it might be the one place left for us."_

_**Primeval (U.K.) 7.1: Adaptive Radiation**_

_**Coming by 1 September 2013  
**__The new Universe begins now._


End file.
